Libertarian Strategies for The Obama Administration
January 1, 2009
Obama Nomination of John Holdren as Science Advisor
December 23, 2008
The Obabma Team Preparing to Push Climate Change Agenda
December 22, 2008
Cooler Heads Newsletter
Politics
ANWR Measure Passes Senate
The Senate on March 16 defeated an attempt to take a provision out of the budget bill that would allow oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The final vote tally was 51-49 in favor of the measure, with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and both Hawaiian Senators breaking ranks to vote with most Republicans on the measure. Senators Chafee (R-RI), Coleman (R-Minn.), Collins (R-Me.), DeWine (R.-Ohio), McCain (R-Az.), Smith (R-Oreg.) and Snowe (R-Me.) all voted to remove the measure from the budget.
The measure is likely to survive conference with the House, but the fate of budget reconciliation legislation is uncertain because of other disagreements between the Senate and the House. Last year, the Congress failed to agree on a budget.
Martin Intervenes in Canadian
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has intervened directly to break an impasse between ministers over the country’s
According to the CP, “Emerson is said to favour a voluntary agreement with automakers to produce cleaner cars, while Dion wants the deal backed up with legally binding regulations that could be invoked if voluntary commitments are not upheld. The government is seeking a cut of about five megatonnes from the auto industry, a small fraction of the 240-megatonne reduction needed to meet the
“However, a deal with the giant, highly visible, Ontario-based auto industry is considered of symbolic importance. Such a deal would be useful to offset claims that the government is discriminating against
A previous plan called for a 25 per cent improvement in the average fuel economy of new cars by 2010, which could cut 5.2 megatonnes annually from
Houghton Influences Evangelical Group
Former IPCC Chairman Sir John Houghton appears to be behind efforts to swing the National Association of Evangelicals towards an alarmist position on global warming.
According to the
The association’s vice president of government affairs, the Rev. Rich Cizik, says that he was “converted” to the cause by Sir John: “Among [the evangelical leaders involved] is the Rev. Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network, who in 2002 began a "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign and drove a hybrid vehicle across the country.
“Mr. Cizik said that Mr. Ball ‘dragged’ him to a conference on climate change in 2002 in
“Sir John said in an interview that he had told the group that science and faith together provided proof that climate change should be a Christian concern. Mr. Cizik said he had a ‘conversion’ on climate change so profound in
“Mr. Cizik and Mr. Ball then asked Sir John to speak at a small meeting of evangelical leaders in June in
Those leaders produced a ‘covenant’ in which 29 committed to ‘engage the evangelical community’ on climate change and to produce a ‘consensus statement’ within a year.”
Christianity Today has editorialized in favor of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act. Cizik commented, “We're not adverse to government-mandated prohibitions on behavioral sin such as abortion…. We try to restrict it. So why, if we're social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be for a little tinkering to protect the environment?”
Scientist Appointed EPA Head
On March 4, President Bush nominated Stephen Johnson, previously the acting head, to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Johnson is a career scientist who has been with the Agency for 24 years, mostly working in the areas of pesticides and toxic substances.
According to the Associated Press (Mar. 4), the President’s top environmental priority for Johnson is “to rewrite air pollution laws and regulations” (the Clear Skies initiative). In addition, the EPA will look to support development of a hydrogen-fueled car.
Economics
The European Union has been in conflict with both
The British government attempted to raise its proposed allowances following the realization that other European nations were being more accommodating to their industries than the
Nevertheless, on March 14, the
The move was welcomed by greens but condemned by industry. David Porter, chief executive of the Association of Electricity Producers, told the BBC, “We are naturally disappointed but not surprised. Electricity will be more expensive as a result.”
Meanwhile, the EU Commission demanded that
Accountants Tackle Carbon Questions
European financial directors are having to grapple with a new set of issues following the introduction of the EU’s new carbon emissions trading scheme. According to Accountancy Age (Mar. 7), “The impact on accounting is almost as significant as the impact on the environment.”
The magazine explains, “When issued, emissions allowances will be granted free of charge. Under international accounting standards, allowances will be shown at fair value on the balance sheet, and as intangible assets with an equal and opposite credit to liabilities for deferred income…. The deferred income initially recognized is released to the p&l [profit and loss statement] as grant income in line with the actual emissions of CO2 made by the entity.
“At any balance sheet date, the company must make provisions for the actual emissions it makes. This provision is based on the market price of allowances at the balance sheet date…. If the market value rises between the date of issuance of allowances and the balance sheet date, the company will report a loss. If the value falls, it will recognize a gain.
“When the allowances are remitted to the government at the end of April the following year, the company recognizes a reversal of the excess provision. Thus the p&l impact is entirely accounting-driven and doesn’t reflect the underlying performance of the business.”
In other words, a well-performing company may be forced to report a loss if the market does not move in the right direction. Similarly, a poorly performing company might register a profit.
There are also significant tax issues involved. A Pricewaterhouse Coopers spokesman told Accountancy Age, “It is a big issue for the sectors that are affected. We have seen a lot of activity from companies that have suddenly realized there is a hell of a lot to do.”
Science
Biomass Pollutes and Kills in
Two new studies from
The first study, from the Calcutta-based Chittaranjan Cancer Research Institute, found that women using the biomass-fueled chula, a traditional cooking stove, were inhaling the equivalent in pollutants of 20 cigarettes a day. The researchers measured household air samples as containing 2000 to 5000 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter, when the Indian Central Pollution Control Board has set a maximum permissible level of 60 micrograms per cubic meter.
They estimate that such indoor pollution kills 1.6 million people (mostly women) per year, 550,000 of them in
Another study in
Shyamal Sarkar of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board told the BBC that state governments in
“We Have to Get Rid of the Medieval Warm Period”
In a new article to be published in the June 2005 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, David Deming of the
Deming explains, “In 1995, I had a short paper published in the prestigious journal Science. I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in
“The week the article appeared, I came into my office one morning to find a voicemail message from a reporter for National Public Radio. He wanted to interview me concerning my article in Science. Visions of glory danced in front of my eyes. I was going to be on national radio. Surely, it was only a matter of time before I would be a regular guest on the McNeil-Lehrer news hour on PBS. Excited, I called the reporter back. But all of my fantasies were immediately dispelled. The reporter focused in on the last sentence in the Science paper. He asked me, did I really mean to say that? Did I really intend to imply that the warming in
“A year later, I received a telephone call from an author working on an article for International Wildlife, a magazine published by the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental advocacy group. We discussed some of my work, and talked about the implication of borehole temperature measurements for global warming. Subsequently, the Editor of International Wildlife sent me a draft article for review. I was horrified. My work and comments had been taken out of context and used in such a way as to exaggerate the magnitude of climate change. I made some pointed comments, and the article was toned down a little. I later learned that the author of the International Wildlife article was not a scientist, but a lawyer. I had been naïve. I had assumed that everyone was like me—they were interested in the truth. But a lawyer's job isn't to discover truth; it's to win an argument. Neither is an advocacy organization interested in truth—they are committed to advocating a certain position regardless of the facts.
“With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said, ‘We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.’”
Deming goes on to compare the recent work debunking the “hockey stick” to the debunking of disgraced Emory University professor Michael Bellesiles’s contention that there was no such thing as an American gun culture during colonial times. He then praises Michael Crichton’s State of Fear before concluding with thoughts about politicized science:
“As the twenty-first century dawns in
Melting Polar Ice May be Natural
According to the Scotsman (Mar. 9), “The melting of sea ice at the North Pole may be the result of a centuries-old natural cycle and not an indicator of man-made global warming, Scottish scientists have found.”
Dr Chad Dick of the Norwegian Polar Institute and his colleague Dr Dimitry Irvine researched the log-books of Arctic explorers over the past 300 years and discovered that the outer edge of sea ice may expand and contract over regular periods of 60 to 80 years, a change that “corresponds roughly with known cyclical changes in atmospheric temperature.”
Dr Dick told the newspaper, “Cycles of 60 to 80 years have been identified before in atmospheric temperature records in the
Nevertheless, Dr Dick also addressed the benefits of an Arctic with less ice: “If the sea ice continues to disappear it could cut something like 5000km off the sea route from Europe to
Latest from Climateaudit.com
Steve Mcintyre’s website continues to be the useful source for information on the ongoing “hockey stick” saga. On March 7, Steve posted the following comments from Hans van Storch, made originally in German in Technology Review:
“Two aspects deserve attention in connection with the discussion of Mann’s Hockey Stick: On the one hand, who is going to win the argument; it’s the Tragedy of the Commons of climate research. McIntyre found a technical error in Mann’s methodology; in a Science study published in October 2004, my team discovered another, in our opinion even more serious error. It is actually the task of reviewers of specialist science journals to identify such errors. Yet with regards to Nature, there is another criterion apart from that of scientific quality, which is often enough reviewed shoddily: the public interest, which is essentially equated here with the sales figures of the magazine.
“Mann’s study was apparently so interesting that it was accepted. A precarious fact. But it is even more precarious that the powerful people in charge of the IPCC turned the publication into an icon, the symbol of proof of anthropogenic climate change. That was not only stupid, but irresponsible. As a result of this elevation, the entire hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change is being unjustifiably questioned. Which brings me to the second point: Is the hockey stick curve crucially affected by Mann’s shoddiness? We tested it by way of a one-thousand-year simulation with a climatic model and found that the effect wasn’t significant. The error is real, but probably not far-reaching. Nevertheless, it is a good thing that the debate about the temperature history of the last millennium can be conducted again unconditionally. Steve McIntyre contributed substantially to this development; he deserves to be thanked for it.”
Also in
“In my view, the present debate about Michael Mann’s diagram is actually an expression of a healthy scientific discussion. Whoever questions the curve does not have to be a climate skeptic. My team of researchers is also working on the curve. I had set one of my PhD students the task to replicate Mann’s work. Quite soon, she came to the conclusion that she cannot reproduce his diagram. We strove to look deeply into it—and promptly found a can of worms. After all, that’s how science works. The real problem in this case, in my view, is that Michael Mann does not disclose his data.
“It is also problematic that the discussion has become politically explosive. As climate sceptics notice that there are uncertainties in the results, they immediately see that as proof that climate research produces only nonsense. I consider it inadmissible to turn a completely specialist science debate into a fundamental criticism of climate research and the IPCC. After all, Mann’s study appeared in Nature, a renowned peer-reviewed specialist journal. In such cases, the IPCC team has to rely on peer review. To check each publication used in the IPCC report would take far too long.
“In the meantime, a European Union project named ‘Soap’ has been set up which is looking into the problem with Mann’s climate curve. Climate researchers from seven institutes are working on temperature curves for the last 1000 years. The project has a budget of nearly 1.4 million euro over a period of three years—which is the period one needs to examine Mann’s curve reliably.”
The Soap project’s three-year timetable means it will be ready just in time for inclusion in the next IPCC report due in 2007.
Etc.
Move Over, Beethoven
According to the San Francisco Chronicle (Mar. 5), the lighting “consisted of a dozen large blocks of ice, lit from within, strung overhead and, of course, dripping onto the floor as it melts.”
The main dancer is a Cassandra figure, “who sounds the warning of what will befall a world preoccupied with superficiality, bogus political issues and false piety that ignores impending natural disaster.” The other dancers are interested only in “Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress (wafting through), gay marriage (two guys dash across in bridal veils, followed by a Grahamesque preacher and congregation…) and anything a little man in a big cowboy hat has to say. (In case you miss his identity, an elephant ice sculpture is wheeled out on a tea cart).”
The Chronicle spoils the ending: “Well, it cannot last. The ice, like the center, cannot hold. The dancers, early on, were downstage from the melt, but then life became wetter, dancing riskier – the citizens soaked in disaster.”
The Chronicle’s verdict: “[Director Brenda] Way lets the piece go on too long, but in all, it’s superb. Accompanying it March 20 is a special post-performance panel discussion on global warming. The issue (and the grants it garnered) matters, to be sure, but the art can stand on its own, which is the point.”
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
Americans for Tax Reform
American Legislative Exchange Council
Association of Concerned Taxpayers
Center for Security Policy
Citizens for a Sound Economy
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Consumer Alert
Defenders of Property Rights
Fraser Institute,
Frontiers of Freedom
George C. Marshall Institute
Heartland Institute
Independent Institute
Istituto Bruno Leoni,
JunkScience.com
Lavoisier Group,
Liberty Institute,
Pacific Research Institute
Seniors Coalition
60 Plus Association
Small Business Survival Committee
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