It’s Not Easy Being Green — and It’s Not Cheap Either!

The world’s temperatures haven’t risen in 15 years, but that isn’t stopping the President from turning the heat up on climate change. Desperate to change his ownclimate of scandals and controversies, President Obama took to Georgetown on Tuesday to invoke a sweeping environmental policy the only way he knows how: without Congress’s consent. The imperial President, who uses executive orders to write laws that he can’t pass, once again showed his contempt for the democratic process by issuing these policies without a single debate.

In the crosshairs of this latest environmental witch hunt are carbon emissions, which he intends to fight through a multi-billion dollar program that will bankrupt families, the poor, and tilyhe elderly, and kill the fossil fuel industry. “Some 12 million Americans still can’t find work,” the Wall Street Journal criticizes, “real wages have fallen for five years, three-fourths of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck, and the economy continues to plod along four years into a quasi-recovery. But there was the President in Georgetown, threatening more energy taxes and mandates that will ensure fewer jobs, still lower incomes and slower growth.”

In his typical way, the President announced his project by vilifying detractors, not persuading them. A combative Barack Obama said he’d run out of patience. “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” he lashed out at the growing number of experts who see the global warming initiatives as a “fool’s errand.” As it stands, greenhouse gas emissions are falling at a rate “that’s greater than the one laid out in the President’s plan. So why get involved at all?” asks Chip Knappenberger.

Voters in the Midwest and South wonder too. They heard nothing about this agenda when they went to the polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania last November — two regions where coal production is highest. “Instead,” the Wall Street Journal says, the President “posed as the John the Baptist of fossil fuels… taking credit for the shale fracking boom he had nothing to do with and running ads attacking Mitt Romney as anti-coal.”

As Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance explained on our radio show “Washington Watch” earlier this week, even if the U.S. as a whole stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the world’s temperature would only drop .08% by 2050! That’s laughable considering the steep price the President is willing to exact in jobs (500,000), family incomes ($1,000 a year), electricity prices (+20%), and natural gas prices (+43%). And this is on top of what Americans are already forking over for ObamaCare!

Make no mistake. The underlying agenda here is devastating to our nation. As social conservatives, we need to wake up to the threat that these policies pose to the values closest to our hearts: liberty (the lack of energy choices), family (higher costs), limited government (overregulation of the economy), and democracy (which the President bypassed to force this albatross around the neck of our economy). Contact Congressman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of House Energy and Commerce, at 202-225-2927 and ask him to bring the spotlight of his powerful committee on the President’s latest overreach.

MR. PRESIDENT, IT’S NOT “CARBON POLLUTION,” IT’S THE “ELIXIR OF LIFE!”

by Dr. Craig D. Idso, Chairman, Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change | June 26, 2013

Citation: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. “Mr. President, it’s NOT ‘Carbon Pollution,’ it’s the ‘Elixir of Life!’” Last modified June 26, 2013. http://www.co2science.org/articles/V16/N26/EDIT.php.

The original article, available at the above link, is reprinted here with permission.

On June 25th, President Obama unveiled his plan to reduce what he refers to as “carbon pollution” – the emission of gaseous carbon dioxide into the air that primarily results from the burning of fossil fuels. In discussing the rationale for his plan, the President claims that carbon dioxide, or CO2, “causes climate change and threatens public health” and that “cutting carbon pollution will help keep our air and water clean and protect our kids.” Unfortunately, President Obama’s statements could not be further from the truth. Far from being a “pollutant,” carbon dioxide is the Elixir of Life.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, my father and two of his co-workers grew some water lilies in sunken metal stock tanks located out-of-doors and enclosed within clear-plastic-wall open-top chambers through which air of either 350 or 650 ppm CO2 was continuously circulated (Idso et al. 1990). Over the course of the next two growing seasons, he and his colleagues measured a number of plant responses to these two environmental treatments, the former of which we will call “normal” and the latter of which – according to the classification scheme of President Obama – we will call “polluted.”

What my father and his associates learned from their experiment was truly amazing. Although the dictionary defines a pollutant as “a harmful chemical or waste material discharged into the water or atmosphere” – and in my father’s experiment, the offending substance went into both of these environmental reservoirs – the water lilies in the CO2-polluted enclosures seemed to grow better than the water lilies in the normal enclosures, right from the very start of the study.

Although the first new growth from the original rhizomes that were planted in the layers of soil at the bottoms of the tanks all reached the surface of the water at essentially the same time, the leaves that unfurled themselves in the CO2-polluted tanks were slightly larger than those in the normal tanks. The percent dry matter contents of the leaves in the CO2-polluted tanks were also greater. And these two factors combined to produce leaves in the CO2-polluted tanks that were composed of 68% more dry matter, on average, than leaves produced in the non-polluted tanks.

In addition to being larger and more substantial, the leaves in the CO2-polluted tanks had more company: there were 75% more of them than there were in the normal tanks over the course of the initial five-month growing season (which, incidentally, lasted two weeks longer in the CO2-polluted tanks). Each of the plants in the CO2-polluted tanks also produced twice as many flowers as the plants growing in normal air; and the flowers that blossomed in the CO2-polluted air were more substantial than those that bloomed in the air of normal CO2 concentration. They had more petals, the petals were longer, they had a greater percent dry matter content, and each flower consequently weighed about 50% more. In addition, the stems that supported the flowers were slightly longer in the CO2-polluted tanks; and the percent dry matter contents of both the flower and leaf stems were greater, so that the total dry matter in the flower and leaf stems in the CO2-polluted tanks exceeded that of the flower and leaf stems in the non-polluted tanks by approximately 60%.

Table 1. Mean values of various characteristics of water lilies grown out-of-doors at Phoenix, AZ, over the period 18 August 1987-18 January 1988 at 350 and 650 ppm CO2. Adapted from Idso et al. (1990).

Just above the surface of the soil that covered the bottoms of the tanks, there were also noticeable differences. Plants in the CO2-polluted tanks had more and bigger basal rosette leaves, which were attached to longer stems of greater percent dry matter content, which led to the total biomass of these portions of the plants being 2.9 times greater than the total biomass of the corresponding portions of the plants in the unpolluted tanks. In addition, plants in the CO2-polluted tanks had more than twice as many unopened basal rosette leaves.

The greatest differences of all were hidden within the soil that covered the bottoms of the stock tanks. When half of the plants were harvested at the conclusion of the first growing season, the number of new rhizomes produced over that period was discovered to be 2.4 times greater in the CO2-polluted tanks than it was in the unpolluted tanks; while the number of major roots produced there was found to be 3.2 times greater than the number produced in the normal environment. And as with all other plant parts, the percent dry matter contents of the new roots and rhizomes were also greater in the CO2-polluted tanks.

Overall, the total dry matter production within the submerged soils of the water lily ecosystems was 4.3 times greater in the CO2-polluted tanks than it was in the normal tanks; while the total dry matter production of all plant parts – those in the submerged soil, those in the free water, and those in the air above – was 3.7 times greater in the high-CO2 enclosures.

Over the second growing season, the growth enhancement in the CO2-polluted tanks was somewhat less; but the plants in the CO2-polluted environments were so far ahead of the plants in the normal water lily ecosystems that, in their first five months of growth, they produced what it took the plants in the normal air fully 21 months to produce.

If only all air and water pollutants were as bad as CO2, what a wonderful world it would be. As Shakespeare so obviously and correctly stated before the United States of America and its Environmental Protection Agency were ever dreamt of, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Clearly, government edicts may change the classification of a substance, but they cannot change its nature!

Two years ago, I collaborated with my father in the production of a long-awaited work, a book we entitled “The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment: How humanity and the rest of the biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous air pollutant!” Using hundreds of references from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, we demonstrated the undeniable fact that, far from being a pollutant, atmospheric carbon dioxide is, in fact, the elixir of life. It is the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn are the materials out of which animals construct theirs. This knowledge is so well established, in fact (or so we thought!), that we humans – and all the rest of the biosphere – are described in the most basic of terms as carbon-based lifeforms. Nowadays, however, it seems that all we ever hear about atmospheric CO2 are the presumed negative consequences of its increasing concentration.
Time and again, world governments, non-governmental organizations, international agencies, societal think tanks, and even respectable scientific organizations attempting to assess the potential consequences of this phenomenon, have spent multiple millions of dollars writing and promoting large reports about it. Yet, nearly all of these endeavors have failed miserably, by not properly evaluating, or even acknowledging, the manifold real and measurable benefits of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content. As a result, the many important and positive impacts of atmospheric CO2 enrichment remain underappreciated and largely ignored in the debate over what to do, or not do, about anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

President Obama’s war on CO2 is simply the latest example of such ignorance. It’s time to wake up and treat CO2 not as a pollutant, but as it truly is – the elixir of life!

REFERENCE

Idso, S.B., Allen, S.G. and Kimball, B.A. 1990. Growth response of water lily to atmospheric CO2

Climate alarmism’s 10,000 commandments

EPA fiats threaten American lives, livelihoods, living standards and life spans

Guest essay by Paul Driessen

The United States will “do more,” before it’s “too late” to prevent “dangerous” global warming, President Obama told Berliners last week. If Congress won’t act, he will, by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, increasing subsidies and reduce environmental overview for wind and solar projects on federal lands, and issuing other rules that will adversely affect economic growth and job creation.

Indeed, his Environmental Protection Agency is already devising new rules that will sharply curtail carbon dioxide emissions, by regulating thousands of facilities that use hydrocarbon energy – and thus ultimately almost everything Americans make, grow, ship, eat and do.

However, the manmade global warming “disasters” exist only in computer models and assertions by scientists who are addicted to billions in government Climate Armageddon grants. Moreover, the “preventative measures” are far worse than the disasters EPA claims to be preventing.

Even the most diehard alarmists have finally recognized that average global temperatures have hardly budged since 1997, even as atmospheric levels of plant-fertilizing CO2 climbed steadily. For many areas, the past winter was among the coldest in decades; the USA and Britain just recorded one their coldest springs on record; and satellite data show that Earth has actually cooled slightly since 2002.

The frequency and severity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts are no different from observed trends and cycles over the last century. 2012 set records for the fewest strong tornadoes since 1954 and the number of years with no category 3 or higher hurricane making US landfall. (The vicious tornadoes of recent weeks underscore how quickly the weather can swing back to normal patterns.) Arctic sea ice is within a few percentage points of “normal” levels for the past fifty years, and the rate of sea level rise is not accelerating.

These facts completely contradict computer model predictions and alarmist claims. Moreover, as Climategate and numerous studies have shown, the “science” behind EPA’s ruling that carbon dioxide “endangers” human health and welfare is conjectural, manufactured, manipulated and even fraudulent.

EPA is supposed to protect our environment, health and welfare. Instead, it “safeguards” us from exaggerated or illusory risks – by issuing mountains of costly, intrusive regulations that endanger our health, wellbeing and wildlife far more than any reasonably foreseeable effects from climate change.

This accumulation of anti-hydrocarbon restrictions and penalties is putting EPA in control of nearly every aspect of our lives. Fuel, compliance and business costs will soar. Companies will be forced to outsource work to other countries, reduce work forces, shift people to part-time status, or close their doors.

Poor and minority families will be unable to heat and cool their homes properly, pay their rent or mortgage, buy clothing and medicine, take vacations, pay their bills, give to charity, and save for college and retirement.

With twelve million Americans already out of work, and another eight million working multiple lower-paying, part-time jobs, EPA’s global warming and 1,920 other rules over the past four years translate into unprecedented sleep deprivation, lower economic and educational status, and soaring anxiety and stress. That will mean greater risk of strokes and heart attacks; higher incidences of depression, alcohol, drug, spousal and child abuse; more suicides; and declining overall life expectancy.

EPA’s new 54.5 mpg fuel efficiency standards will force more people into smaller, lighter, less safe cars – causing thousands of needless additional serious injuries and deaths every year – in the name of preventing illusory climate and oil and gas depletion crises.

Federal regulators use the same phony climate change and energy depletion arguments to justify letting wind turbine operators slaughter millions of birds and bats every year – including bald and golden eagles, hawks, condors and whooping cranes. They continue to promote and subsidize $50-per-gallon biofuels, to replace oil and natural gas that the world still has in abundance – thanks to new exploration, drilling and production technologies. This focus on biofuels also means more rainforests and other wildlife habitats are being cut down in the name of “renewable” energy.

EPA and President Obama never consider any of this, in calculating the supposed “benefits” of their onerous regulations. They refuse to recognize that their hysterical claims of climate cataclysms are increasingly indefensible. They ignore the damage that their heavy-handed rules impose on our health, welfare and environmental quality.

EPA finds, punishes and even targets anyone who violates any of its ten thousand commandments, even inadvertently. The agency’s climate change actions, however, are not inadvertent. They are deliberate, and their effects are harmful and far reaching. They will affect every American and 100% of our economy.

And yet, these increasingly powerful bureaucrats – who seek and acquire ever more control over our lives – remain faceless, nameless, unelected and unaccountable. They operate largely behind closed doors, issuing regulations and arranging sweetheart “sue and settle” legal actions with radical environmentalist groups, to advance ideological agendas, without regard for their impacts on our lives, livelihoods, living standards, health, welfare and environment.

They know that, for them, there is rarely any real transparency, accountability or consequences – even for gross stupidity, major screw-ups, flagrant abuses or deliberate harm.

We need to save our environment from environmentalists and EPA – and safeguard our liberties, living standards and lives against the arrogance of too-powerful politicians and bureaucrats. How we achieve this, while protecting our lives and environment from real risks, is one of the greatest challenges we face.

________________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

The 1970’s Global Cooling Alarmism

The 1970’s Global Cooling Alarmism

During the 1970s the media promoted global cooling alarmism with dire threats of a new ice age. Extreme weather events were hyped as signs of the coming apocalypse and man-made pollution was blamed as the cause. Environmental extremists called for everything from outlawing the internal combustion engine to communist style population controls. This media hype was found in newspapers, magazines, books and on television;

1970 – Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age – Scientists See Ice Age In the Future (The Washington Post, January 11, 1970)
1970 – Is Mankind Manufacturing a New Ice Age for Itself? (L.A. Times, January 15, 1970)
1970 – New Ice Age May Descend On Man (Sumter Daily Item, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Prospect A Chilling One (Owosso Argus-Press, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution’s 2-way ‘Freeze’ On Society (Middlesboro Daily News, January 28, 1970)
1970 – Cold Facts About Pollution (The Southeast Missourian, January 29, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Could Cause Ice Age, Agency Reports (St. Petersburg Times, March 4, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Called Ice Age Threat (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 1970)
1970 – Dirt Will .Bring New Ice Age (The Sydney Morning Herald, October 19, 1970)
1971 – Ice Age Refugee Dies Underground (The Montreal Gazette, Febuary 17, 1971)
1971 – U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971)
1971 – Ice Age Around the Corner (Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1971)
1971 – New Ice Age Coming – It’s Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
1971 – Another Ice Age? Pollution Blocking Sunlight (The Day, November 1, 1971)
1971 – Air Pollution Could Bring An Ice Age (Harlan Daily Enterprise, November 4, 1971)
1972 – Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972)
1972 – Scientist predicts new ice age (Free-Lance Star, September 11, 1972)
1972 – British expert on Climate Change says Says New Ice Age Creeping Over Northern Hemisphere (Lewiston Evening Journal, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Climate Seen Cooling For Return Of Ice Age (Portsmouth Times, ‎September 11, 1972‎)
1972 – New Ice Age Slipping Over North (Press-Courier, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Begins A New Assault In North (The Age, September 12, 1972)
1972 – Weather To Get Colder (Montreal Gazette, ‎September 12, 1972‎)
1972 – British climate expert predicts new Ice Age (The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Sees Chilling Signs of New Ice Age (L.A. Times, September 24, 1972)
1972 – Science: Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)
1973 – The Ice Age Cometh (The Saturday Review, March 24, 1973)
1973 – Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)
1974 – New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)
1974 – Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)
1974 – 2 Scientists Think ‘Little’ Ice Age Near (The Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)
1974 – Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (The Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1974)
1974 – Believes Pollution Could Bring On Ice Age (Ludington Daily News, December 4, 1974)
1974 – Pollution Could Spur Ice Age, Nasa Says (Beaver Country Times, ‎December 4, 1974‎)
1974 – Air Pollution May Trigger Ice Age, Scientists Feel (The Telegraph, ‎December 5, 1974‎)
1974 – More Air Pollution Could Trigger Ice Age Disaster (Daily Sentinel – ‎December 5, 1974‎)
1974 – Scientists Fear Smog Could Cause Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal, December 5, 1974)
1975 – Climate Changes Called Ominous (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)
1975 – Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975)
1975 – B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? (The Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Cooling Trends Arouse Fear That New Ice Age Coming (Eugene Register-Guard, ‎March 2, 1975‎)
1975 – Is Another Ice Age Due? Arctic Ice Expands In Last Decade (Youngstown Vindicator – ‎March 2, 1975‎)
1975 – Is Earth Headed For Another Ice Age? (Reading Eagle, March 2, 1975)
1975 – New Ice Age Dawning? Significant Shift In Climate Seen (Times Daily, ‎March 2, 1975‎)
1975 – There’s Troublesome Weather Ahead (Tri City Herald, ‎March 2, 1975‎)
1975 – Is Earth Doomed To Live Through Another Ice Age? (The Robesonian, ‎March 3, 1975‎)
1975 – The Ice Age cometh: the system that controls our climate (The Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975)
1975 – The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)
1975 – Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead (PDF) (The New York Times, May 21, 1975)
1975 – In the Grip of a New Ice Age? (International Wildlife, July-August, 1975)
1975 – Oil Spill Could Cause New Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1975)
1976 – The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? [Book] (Lowell Ponte, 1976)
1977 – Blizzard – What Happens if it Doesn’t Stop? [Book] (George Stone, 1977)
1977 – The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age [Book] (The Impact Team, 1977)
1976 – Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)
1977 – The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)
1977 – We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)
1978 – The New Ice Age [Book] (Henry Gilfond, 1978)
1978 – Little Ice Age: Severe winters and cool summers ahead (Calgary Herald, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Winters Will Get Colder, ‘we’re Entering Little Ice Age’ (Ellensburg Daily Record, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Geologist Says Winters Getting Colder (Middlesboro Daily News, January 16, 1978)
1978 – It’s Going To Get Colder (Boca Raton News, ‎January 17, 1978‎)
1978 – Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)
1978 – The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)
1978 – An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)
1979 – A Choice of Catastrophes – The Disasters That Threaten Our World [Book] (Isaac Asimov, 1979)
1979 – Get Ready to Freeze (Spokane Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1979)
1979 – New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)

While a silent majority of the scientific community may have been more skeptical, you ironically find one of the most outspoken supporters of modern day Al Gore style global warming alarmism was promoting global cooling in the 1970s, the late Dr. Steven Schneider;

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – Life of Reason, George Santayana

When it comes to climate change, we have to trust our scientists, because they know lots of big scary words

By Sean Thomas Science Last updated: June 19th, 2013

Huddersfield, 2017

Whither the weather? As you may have heard, a conference of national forecasters assembled this week in Exeter: to discuss the future of the British climate, following the spate of harsher than expected winters, and unusually wet summers, since 2007.

Already, commentators are asking if global warming is to blame. In particular, some are wondering if the direction of the Jet Stream is being altered by Arctic ice melt. Others are speculating that natural variations, such as the “Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation”, might be responsible for recent evolutions.

However, most of this reportage has been second-hand. Unprecedentedly, I had direct access to the meteorologists concerned, as I was in Exeter in spirit form, and I managed to speak to the principal actors.

First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied, “Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”

Startled by this sobering analysis, I moved on to Professor Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of NCAS at the University of Reading. Professor Sutton said that many scientists are, as of this moment, examining the complex patterns in the North Atlantic, and trying to work out whether the current run of inclement European winters will persist.

When pressed on the particular outlook for the British Isles. Professor Sutton shook his head, moaned eerily unto the heavens, and stuffed his fingers into the entrails of a recently disembowelled chicken, bought fresh from Waitrose in Teignmouth.

Hurling the still-beating heart of the chicken into a shallow copper salver, Professor Sutton inhaled the aroma of burning incense, then told the Telegraph: “The seven towers of Agamemnon tremble. Much is the discord in the latitude of Gemini. When, when cry the sirens of doom and love. Speckly showers on Tuesday.”

It’s a pretty stark analysis, and not without merit. There are plenty of climate change scientists who are equally forthright on the possibilities of change, or no change, and of more hot, or less hot, or of rain, or no rain, or of Britain turning into the Sahara by next weekend, or instead becoming a freezing cold Frostyworld ruled by a strange, glistening ice-queen – crucially, it all depends on the time of day you ask them, and whether or not they had asparagus the day before.

So who are we to believe? For a final word, I turned to the greatest climate change scientist of all, Dr David Viner, one-time senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, who predicted in 2000 that, within a few years, winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event”.

However, he was trapped under a glacier in Stockport, so was unable to comment at the time the Telegraph went to press.

Sunset for Solar Subsidies

By Viv Forbes

Europe’s Green Hell

“The European Union’s utopian scheme of transforming itself into a green energy powerhouse is faltering as its fantasy plan is colliding with reality. As the EU’s economic and financial crisis deepens and unemployment continues to rise, what used to be an almost all-embracing green consensus is beginning to disintegrate. The green ideology of limits to growth has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ecological rejection of traditional industries, the obstruction of new technologies together with an almost all-embracing hostility to every form of conventional (let alone unconventional) energy generation is gradually shifting the centre of economic growth and innovation away from an ageing and depressed Europe.”

Benny Peiser

———————————-

Sunset for Solar Subsidies

In the days of Queen Victoria they said, truthfully “the sun never sets on the British Empire”.

But it does set on Australia, every single day. Even the green power engineers in Parliament must have noticed that the sun also sets on all those solar panels that their mandates and subsidies have plastered onto Australian roofs.

Solar energy is most intense on the equator but weakens towards the poles. It disappears when the sun sets or cloud obscures the sun. For just six hours or so per day during summer, in a clear tropical desert area, solar energy is reasonably reliable and collectible, although always very dilute. But at times of peak demand, about 6.30pm in winter, solar panels contribute nothing to electricity supply.

Billions have been spent on researching ways to store massive amounts of solar energy needed to cover the eighteen hours per day of low or zero solar supply.

Many things will work in the lab, even a big bank of car batteries. But once real engineers take over from green dreamers and academics, most of their fanciful energy storage schemes become horrendously expensive or impractical. (A linked hydro scheme would work, but no one would be allowed to build it in case it disturbed a green frog.)

But nature has provided us with the answer and some decade soon an academic will re-discover that the solar energy of yesteryear is stored in concentrated form in prodigious quantities as COAL.

So abundant, reliable and cheap is this stored sunshine, that even green Europe is rediscovering it. Seventeen coal-fired power stations are being built or modernised in Germany, the solar panel capital of the world. China, the world’s biggest exporter of solar panels, is building 363 coal-fired plants for itself.

Green energy policies have destroyed the reliability and economics of power in Europe for zero benefits for the climate or the environment. Every country that forces consumers to use and subsidise renewable energy is suffering soaring electricity prices, increased risks of grid instability and blackouts, and widespread loss of real industry and real jobs. Australia should have learned from Europe’s solar subsidy stupidity. Subsidised solar panels may be good for harvesting votes, but they are not sensible for generating grid power. Only proper power stations will keep the lights on 24/7.

Those who wish to use solar panels should be free to do so providing they accept all the costs and benefits of their decision. We must end all subsidies, tax breaks, price subsidies and guaranteed markets for solar power.

“Any politician who bleats about high electricity prices needs to look no further than the stupid energy policies that are causing most of them. We do not have an energy crisis – we have an energy policy crisis.”

For those wanting to see more evidence of the failure of solar power:

Solar Power Realities:

Click to access solar-realities.pdf

Re-industrialising Europe:
http://12160.info/video/de-industrialising-europe-through-global-warming-alarmism-1?xg_source=activity

Belgium mulls solar panel tax:
http://www.tax-news.com/news/Belgium_Mulls_Solar_Panel_Tax____60790.html

Greece plans levy for rooftop solar panels:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_18/04/2013_494644

Spain planning to cut solar subsidies?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578528992849528304.html

The Great Green U-Turn in the EU:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2331077/Revealed-The-EUs-great-green-U-turn-policy-sending-energy-bills-soaring-continent.html

Germany turns to Coal:

Germany To Open Six More Coal Power Stations In 2013

http://www.thegwpf.org/germany-building-17-new-coal-29-new-gas-fired-power-stations/

Europe goes for Coal:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/6/7/resources-and-energy/coal-comfort-europe?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=314508&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt

The Madness of British Energy policies:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290444/Madness-How-pay-billions-electricity-bills-Britains-biggest-power-station-switch-coal-wood-chips–wont-help-planet-jot.html

US Oil Output in 2012: Largest 1-Year Gain in US History

Mark J. Perry | June 12, 2013, 4:31 pm

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/us-oil-output-in-2012-largest-one-year-gain-in-us-history/?

Just out from the Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Notched Biggest Oil-Output Gain in 2012”
The U.S. last year posted the biggest increase in oil production in the world and the largest increase in U.S. history, unleashing a surge of fresh crude supplies that are helping restrain global oil prices and advance U.S. foreign-policy goals.

Oil production in the U.S. jumped 14% last year to 8.9 million barrels per day, according to the newly released annual BP statistical review. That production, spurred primarily by the development of new tight-oil fields such as those in North Dakota, helped offset supply shocks in other oil-producing countries.

“The growth in U.S. output was a major factor in keeping oil prices from rising sharply, despite a second consecutive year of large oil supply disruptions,” said BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley.

The boom in the U.S. and Canadian oil patch contrasts sharply with developments in many big oil-producing countries such as Mexico, Nigeria, Brazil and Venezuela, where output fell. Canadian production, spurred by both traditional crude production and the development of oil sands, grew almost 7%.
MP: The chart above shows the record-setting increase in US oil output last year, which registered a 790,000 barrel per day increase in 2012, the largest single-year gain in US history. Welcome to “Saudi America’s” shale revolution.

DOE Green Energy Loans: $11.45 million per job and a rounding error’s worth of averted carbon emissions

by David Middleton

The cost of each taxpayer-financed green energy job created since 2009:

$26.32 billion divided by 2,298 jobs = $11.45 million per job…

Green energy jobs and DOE loans are tallied under programs 1703 and 1705 on this list.

Permanent jobs created: 2,298
Taxpayer financed loan guarantees: $26.33 billion

19 of the projects cost more than $10 million per permanent job…

Even if you use the Obama maldaministration’s accounting methods and include temporary employment, the totally idiotic “jobs created/saved” category and include the 33,000 Ford Motor Company jobs “saved”, you get ~60,000 jobs at a cost of $34.5 billion –> $580,000 per job.

Bear in mind that Mr. Obama promised “to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects.” He’s currently 4,997,702 short of the 5 million mark.

The Full Cost of “Green Energy” Jobs

I have handy cost estimates for three of the solar plants near the top of the list of $10 million-plus jobs. If I factor in the increased cost of electricity, the cost per permanent job literally skyrockets, as promised by candidate Obama in 2008.

I generously assumed that the three solar PV plants could achieve a 30% capacity factor (the average is 25%), that they could achieve a levelized generation cost (LCOE) of $144.30 per MWh (DOE’s most recent average for plants coming online in 2018) and that they could remain in service for 20 years.

The total cost to the economy per permanent “green energy” job created by these three solar PV plants is $82.3 million. If I add in the 2,450 temporary construction jobs that were created, the cost per job drops to $2.8 million per job.

The Carbon-Free Benefits of Green Energy

The carbon-free “benefit” is a 0.007% reduction in annual global carbon emissions, relative to coal (0.00035% relative to natural gas). Neither the climate nor the oceans will notice this “benefit.”

Each MW of coal generation displaced by solar PV reduces global carbon emissions by about 0.000008% and doubles (or more) the cost of electricity. Natural gas would achieve half the carbon emission reduction at about 1/3 the cost of solar and a slightly lower cost than coal.

Of course, nuclear would solve the whole problem… But it’s frowned upon by greenies.

The Irony is priceless…

According to the EPA, coal yields 2,249 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide per MWh of electricity generated. That works out to 1.02 metric tons of CO2 per MWh of generation.

In 2011, 1.8 million MWh (1.8 TWh) of electricity were generated in these United States by solar power plants. Assuming this generation displaced coal, 1.87 million metric tons of CO2 emissions were averted.

That’s a lot! Right?

Well, no it is not a lot. 1.87 million tons of CO2 emissions is barely a rounding error compared to total global carbon emissions.

1.87 million tons of CO2 is 0.51 million tons of carbon. According to CDIAC, the total global carbon emissions in 2011 were 9,471.37 million tons of carbon.

9,471.37 – 0.51 = 9,470.86

The minuend and difference both round to 9,471 million tons of carbon.

9,471 million tons of carbon is 9.5 Gt of carbon. Natural carbon sources emit 190 to 225 Gt per year…

Anthropogenic emissions account for only 4-5% of the total carbon budget. 1.8 TWh of US solar generation in 2011 reduced the 4-5% component by 0.005%.

This would be funny if it didn’t cost so much money.

In 2011 there was 4,389 MW of solar PV installed capacity in these United States. At $6 million per MW, the total cost for those solar plants was ~$26.3 billion. Had that money been spent on natural gas-fired plants (~$900,000 per MW), it could have displaced 29,260 MW of coal-fired capacity. This would have generated 223 TWh of electricity (solar only yielded 1.8 TWh. Natural gas yields about half the carbon emissions as coal. If 223 TWh of coal-fired generation had been displaced by natural gas, it would have reduced global carbon emissions by ~56 metric tons (solar only reduced it by 0.51 metric tons).

Here’s a “what if” comparison:

Black = What if solar did not displace coal-fired plants.

Green = Actual solar generation and actual emissions.

Red = What if the money spent on solar had been spent on natural gas-fired plants.

Data Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2012.

Of course, since CO2 is not a real pollutant, only the cost matters… But it is funny – Natural gas would be a far more effective weapon than solar for tilting at AGW windmills…

Is Fighting Global Warming the Solution to Water Shortages in Malawi (or Elsewhere)?

by E. Calvin Beisner

In late May two evangelical environmentalists, recently returned from visiting Malawi, published articles in which they said poor Malawians are suffering from reduced rainfall caused by man-made global warming.

Jonathan Merritt wrote for Religion News Service, “In America, climate change is a matter of debate, but in places like Malawi, it’s a matter of life and death.” Judd Birdsall wrote for Huffington Post, “In Fombe village, Malawi, climate change is not a matter of political or scientific debate. It’s a matter of survival.”

The implication was clear: To help the poor in Malawi (and other developing nations), we must fight global warming.

If either author had dug deeper, he might have concluded differently. …

Although the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s computer models projected about 0.7°C of warming from 1979 through 2012 for Malawi, satellite measurements—unaffected by the problems that compromise land-based data—show no statistically significant trend in temperature. …

[While both Merritt and Birdsall claim that rainfall decreased in Malawi during the recent global warming, and both cited local farmers testifying so, in] reality, while rainfall amounts have risen and fallen in Malawi since 1900, there is no significant trend, as the data in the table below show. In 1990–2009, Malawi’s average monthly rainfall was 4% higher than in 1900–1930, 0.5% lower than in 1930–1960, 3.1% lower than in 1960–1990, and virtually identical to the average for the full 110 years, and there was no apparent delay or shortening of rainy seasons.

Are poor Malawians suffering from water shortages? Yes. Is that because of global warming—manmade or natural? No. Is fighting global warming the solution? No. …

The real solution to Malawi’s water needs is economic growth that will enable Malawians to bear the costs of improved water transportation, storage, purification, and conservation through efficient use.

Sad to say, however, if climate change activists succeed in enacting policies to fight global warming, Malawi’s economic growth will be curtailed. Why? Because abundant, reliable, affordable energy is an essential condition of economic growth, and activists seek to fight global warming by shunning the use of the most reliable and affordable energy sources for the developing world—coal and natural gas—and putting far more expensive “Green” energy sources like wind and solar in their place. As it happens, Malawi has abundant coal reserves and already mines them (PDF download), though it could benefit from mining far more to generate electricity and deliver its people from the smoke that comes from burning wood and dried dung as primary cooking and heating fuels—smoke that causes high rates of illness and premature death, especially among women and children, from respiratory diseases.

Ironically, and sadly, the climate policy Merritt and Birdsall want will only bring further harm to the very people they long to help, by prolonging their poverty—the real threat to Malawians’ health and life. [Read the whole article.]

[This article first appeared at WattsUpwithThat.com, the world’s most widely read and highly acclaimed science blog.]

Protecting the Poor from Well-intended But Fallacious Climate Policy

My friends, if because of misdiagnosis a doctor treats the wrong disease, he can, with the best of intentions, do serious harm to his patient, wasting money on needless or even counterproductive treatment. Similarly, fighting global warming, the wrong disease, would cost the world trillions of dollars and slow the developing world’s rise out of the right disease, which is poverty.

To avoid such mistakes, people need to understand not only the science but also the ethics and economics of the debates over climate change and how—and indeed whether—to respond to it. Building that sound understanding is a major part of the Cornwall Alliance’s mission, and we need your financial support to do it.

Offshore wind enormously expensive energy alternative

By Steve Goreham
Originally published by The Washington Times

The US Department of the Interior announced the first offshore wind energy lease sale earlier this month. Interior plans a July auction of 164,750 acres off the southern coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts for commercial wind farms. But why are federal and state governments promoting expensive offshore wind energy?

The auction is a continuation of the “Smart from the Start” program for expediting offshore wind begun by former Energy Secretary Steven Chu and former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in 2011. Sally Jewell, the new Secretary of the Interior, has embraced the program, stating, “This is history in the making as we mark yet another major milestone in the President’s all-of-the-above energy strategy. Today we are moving closer to tapping into the enormous potential offered by offshore wind to create jobs, increase our sustainability, and strengthen our nation’s competitiveness in this new energy frontier.”

Several governors joined the chorus for offshore wind. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick supports the program, “The U.S. Department of Energy projects 20,000 jobs by 2020 in offshore wind. Why not host those jobs here in Massachusetts?” Maryland governor Martin O’Malley agreed, “Offshore wind is a potential win-win-win for Maryland. Today’s vote positions our State for greater job creation and opportunity, while moving us forward toward securing a more sustainable energy future.”

Governors also voicing strong support are Paul LePage of Maine, Pat McCrory of North Carolina, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and even Ted Strickland of Ohio, who would place wind turbines in Lake Erie. In 2010, governors from ten states, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium to promote offshore wind development.

Unfortunately, offshore wind is enormously expensive. The US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates the levelized cost of wind-generated electricity at more than double the cost of coal-fired electricity and more than three times the cost of power from natural gas. For example, the proposed Cape Wind project off the coast of southeast Massachusetts will initially deliver electricity at 18.7 cents per kilowatt-hour with a built-in increase of 3.5 percent per year over a fifteen-year contract. This is more than triple the wholesale cost of electricity in New England.

Offshore wind is only possible because of generous subsidies, tax breaks, and mandates from government. Today, 38 states offer property tax incentives, 28 states offer sales tax incentives, and 24 states offer tax credits for renewable energy sources. Twenty-nine states have Renewable Portfolio Standards laws requiring utilities to buy an increasing share of electricity from renewable sources, including all ten states in the Offshore Wind Energy Consortium.

At the start of the year, the US government extended the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), providing 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated from wind. The PTC will cost taxpayers $12 billion this year. Look for the DOE to offer loan guarantees to offshore wind developers. Altogether, government incentives pay 30 to 50 percent of the cost of a wind installation.

The consumer pays twice for offshore wind. First, consumer taxes fund wind energy subsidies and tax breaks. Second, states like Massachusetts force utilities to buy high-cost offshore wind electricity, which then increase electricity rates so the consumer pays again.

At the same time, we’re in the midst of a hydrocarbon revolution. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling will provide more than 100 years of natural gas at current usage rates. With electricity from natural gas at less than one-third the price of offshore wind, why the support for offshore wind from our political leaders?

Electricity from your wall outlet is standard voltage and current. No one can tell the difference between electricity from hydrocarbon sources or “green” sources such as wind. Would governors Patrick and O’Malley repurchase their current car at three times the price?

Wind energy backers claim that if the government subsidizes wind systems, the cost will come down. But that idea is false. Wind turbines are not new technology. After 25 years of installations, about 185,000 wind turbine towers were operating across the world at the end of 2011. Wind technology is already well down the cost learning curve.

In fact, data from the DOE shows that the installed cost of US wind systems has been rising, not falling. Installed costs have risen 65 percent over the last six years, from $1,300 per kilowatt in 2004 to over $2,100 per kilowatt in 2010.

Underlying the push for offshore wind is the ideology of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. But anyone who believes that building offshore wind turbines will stop the oceans from rising, make the hurricanes less severe, and save polar bears needs to reconsider. Suppose we invest in cost-effective electricity sources, rather than offshore wind?

Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.