Renewable Energy Does Nothing

A report from Germany (PDF) on renewable energy shows that it is so expensive and produces so little, that "net climate effect has been equal to zero", while costing billions of dollars:

Given the net cost of 41.82 Cents/kWh for PV modules installed in 2008, and assuming that PV displaces conventional electricity generated from a mixture of gas and hard coal, abatement costs are as high as 716 € (US $1,050) per tonne. Using the same assumptions and a net cost for wind of 3.10 Cents/kWh, the abatement cost is approximately 54 € (US $80). While cheaper than PV, this cost is still nearly double the ceiling of the cost of a per-ton permit under Europe’s cap-andtrade scheme. Renewable energies are thus among the most expensive GHG reduction measures.

There are much cheaper ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than subsidizing renewable energies. CO2 abatement costs of PV are estimated to be as high as 716 € (US $1,050) per tonne, while those of wind power are estimated at 54 € (US $80) per tonne. By contrast, the current price of emissions certificates on the European emissions trading scheme is only 13.4 Euro per tonne. Hence, the cost from emission reductions as determined by the market is about 53 times cheaper than employing PV and 4 times cheaper than using wind power. Moreover, the prevailing coexistence of the EEG and emissions trading under the European Trading Scheme (ETS) means that the increased use of renewable energy technologies generally attains no additional emission reductions beyond those achieved by ETS alone. In fact, since the establishment of the ETS in 2005, the EEG’s net climate effect has been equal to zero.

EPA to People: Drop Dead

In their eco-Fatwa against CO2, the EPA has now declared the act of breathing an offensive act of pollution! A climate date that will live in infamy, CheifIO says:

"From this day forward, EPA has taken responsibility for the climate with a goal of making it colder. Every time there is a cold excursion that causes loss or damage, the EPA ought to be presented the bill."

I signed up to Stop the Copenhagen treaty. We all will have to do our part for the greater good of humanity and save us from the anti-CO2 lunacy.



UPDATE - Next April 1st, they go after Water Vapor! Dihydrogen Monoxide, the most dangerous greenhouse gas - "(Washington, DC) The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to classify water vapor as a pollutant, due to its central role in global warming. Because water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for at least 90% of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect, its emission during many human activities, such as the burning of fuels, is coming under increasing scrutiny by federal regulators...." See Eco_examiner.

The weird 'genius' of Austin's eco-boondoggles

This invite on Linked-in to Clean Energy Venture Summit, went over the top in Austin clean-energy self-congratulations:

If having a “near-genius” public utility, all of the resources to kick off a trillion-dollar industry, a leading Green Building Program, the most aggressive smart grid project in the nation, and one of the top ranked incubators in the United States is weird, then Austin epitomizes the meaning of the word. As if all that is not enough, Austin jumps even further ahead with the Clean Energy Venture Summit: Bringing the Smart Grid to Life. Growth stage companies will contribute technologies that help make smart grid a reality while competing for prizes from local companies.
For more information, visit: http://budurl.com/CEVS2009/

I have to respond to "If having a “near-genius” public utility"Did they mean the utility that, at the behest of our Austin city council, ended up buying a bunch of expensive renewable energy for the Green Choice program and now has 99% of it unsold and now plans for all Austin Energy ratepayers to share the load of this added cost? And that will be required, due to city council decision, to spend $2+ billion on energy from burning wood chips, when a natural gas-fired plant would provide more energy at fraction of the cost and lower emissions? Not to mention that very expensive ($250m) solar power array in east Austin; they turn down a chance at more emissions-free nuclear energy because they fret about 'cost', then they blow money on solar array thats are almost ten times more expensive on dollar per Kwh basis.
Yes, if these rate-hike-inducing policies are 'genius' then Austin is indeed 'weird'. Ah, the 'genius' of spending $9.50 for $3.60 worth of energy!

See: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/07/12/0712greenchoice.html

Eco-activists redefining "Global Warming"

Liberal environmentalists are losing the "Global Warming" argument, so attempt to redefine terms. They tried to rename it 'climate change' (joking retort: "Here in Texas we call it 'Spring'.") Now they are moving on to new focus-group tested terms to cover up the failed attempt to hype the "Climate Crisis" (that isn't a crisis). It's all about marketing - the sham-wow of environmental issues!

Hmmm, about instead of redefining terms ... you just stick to the facts, truth, and logic?

Cap-and-trade cost is huge, but media misleads

According to an MIT study, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year, $3100 a year in taxes and $800 a year in other economic losses. Yet somehow the MSNBC/ThinkProgress/twisted-liberal media "Fuzzy Math" made it a 'lie' when Republicans reported this fact (HT FR). How did the Liberals pretend it wouldnt cost that much? By assuming that cap-and-trade taxation is 'free' because taxes that go to the Federal Govt get 'recycled' back to households.

In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.

The $800 paid annually per household is merely the "cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without releasing [Green House Gases]," Reilly wrote. "So that might involve spending money on insulating your home, or buying a more expensive hybrid vehicle to drive, or electric utilities substituting gas (or wind, nuclear, or solar) instead of coal in power generation, or industry investing in more efficient motors or production processes, etc. with all of these things ending up reflected in the costs of good and services in the economy."

Reilly estimates that "the amount of tax collected" through companies would equal $3,128 per household--and "Those costs do get passed to consumers and income earners in one way or another"--but those costs have "nothing to do with the real cost" to the economy. Reilly assumes that the $3,128 will be "returned" to each household. Without that assumption, Reilly wrote, "the cost would then be the Republican estimate [$3,128] plus the cost I estimate [$800]."

In Reilly's view, the $3,128 taken through taxes will be "returned" to each household whether or not the government cuts a $3,128 rebate check to each household.

Happy Industrial Revolution Day

Obama celebrated Industrial Revolution Day by visiting a manufacturing plant - a 'model factory' for the Brave New Green World.

I celebrated by driving my car, and looking at some manufacturing data at work.

I hope your Industrial Revolution Day was as productive.

Worst Climate Predictions of 2008

Watts Up With That shares the worst climate predications of 2008. 2008 was the year where temperature facts upended global warming hysteria, and the climate fearmongering predictions were put on ice, so to speak.
It may have even disproved the AGW hypothesis. To put it in graphic terms:

The KMT and the Greening of Taiwan

The China Post story below about Taiwan's left leaning "energy" policies (more like "environmental" policies) shows that the Kuomintang (KMT) is anything but politically conservative in our way of thinking. I think the reason these policies appeal to the Chinese Nationalist mindset is that the Nationalist have always and forever been about State Socialism. They have always wanted to control the means of production and consumption. This has allowed them to have gang like control over the island entrenching themselves through corruption and thereby becoming the richest political party in the free world. ("The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) - Until 1986, Taiwan's political system was effectively controlled by one party, the KMT, the leader of which also was the ROC president. Many top political officials were members of the party. The party claimed over 2 million members, and its net assets were reputed to total more than NT $61.2 billion, making it the richest political party in the world.")

Prior to 2000, when power was transferred to the Taiwanese by democratic election for the first time in history (the 1st democratization milestone was the 1996 Presidential election), the KMT could exert this control with impunity in part because the political right in the United States viewed it/Taiwan as a stop gap against the Communist Chinese. The United States providing moral support to the Nationalists in "the eventual" taking back of China from the Communists (it wasn't until 1991 that the KMT claim to rule all of China was dropped). As a result, many Republicans have viewed the KMT as a fellow right wing party rather as the center left socialist party in seems to be today, and indeed has always been. Preceded in expression of devotion to the Mainland by KMT Party member and loosing 2004 Presidential candidate Lien Chan (a real sore looser) and People First Party (PFP) candidate James Soong, Taiwan's new president, Harvard Graduate (and US green card holder) Ma Ying-jeou promised his dying father, as evidenced by the engraving on his father's urn, that he would work toward eventual reunification of Taiwan and China (as if they has ever been unified in the first place).

Similarly Ma's economic vision is far from that of conservative Republicans. So it seems apropos that the Premier in Ma's administration would reveal an energy "policy" which tracks with that of the left in the United States. Touted as "a concrete plan for slashing carbon emissions within a period of four years," it includes bike paths and strong encouragement for people to use bicycles, more efficient but hazardous fluorescent light bulbs, conversion of vehicles to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and quotas/deadlines for moving to alternative energy sources. (The LED traffic signals are, however, a nice addition.) Prominent in its omission from Ma's "energy" policy are any plans to boost the real supply of energy. But since the policy is to slash carbon emissions I suppose they can increase the non-carbon-emitting energy supply, right? Good luck, Ma!

Somehow when you cross the seas right becomes left, and left becomes right. For just as the KMT Party does not seem like the political right to us (though considered the political right in Taiwan), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) identifies itself as liberal and yet holds to many core ideals Republican's adhere to. With a few exceptions, the platform of the DPP fits well within that of the Republican Party of Texas, while the KMT does not have a platform but rather takes policy positions base on white papers from it's leaders. The KMT is not a grass roots political party. The DPP is much less centralized, much less authoritarian, thus more like the Republican Party of Texas.

Premier issues energy policies

Saturday, July 26, 2008
The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Premier Liu Chao-shiuan announced a concrete plan for slashing carbon emissions within a period of four years in accordance with the sustainable development policies of President Ma Ying-jeou.

Liu said yesterday that all traffic signals across Taiwan will be replaced with LED lights in three years.

Power-saving bulbs in all homes and water heaters running on solar energy for 140,000 households will be installed in four years.

As many as 100,000 of the island's taxis will be running on cleaner-burning liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in four years.

These were among the major action plans worked out by Liu and senior Cabinet officials at a meeting to review the administrative work for the past two months and map out new strategies for the coming months and years.

Liu said the measures will be implemented to realize the green revolution promised by President Ma and Vice President Vincent Siew in their election campaign pledges to conserve energy and safeguard the environment while achieving long-term and sustainable economic development. On World Environment Day on June 5, President Ma reaffirmed that the government's future policies would not only focus on economic growth but also on social welfare and sustainability.

LED traffic signals

One of the major initiatives is to replace all bulbs in traffic lights to LED (light-emitting diode) lights within three years.

Taiwan is one of the world's top suppliers of LED products, including the light panels used by TV sets and computers.

In three years, Taiwan will rank along with Singapore as one of the most advanced areas in terms of utilizing LED systems for traffic control, Liu said.

Power-saving bulbs

Liu and other government officials believe overhauling Taiwan's lighting system will pay big dividends in electricity savings.

The move was in line with a decision by many advanced countries to end the sale and use of incandescent bulbs by 2012.

The government already implemented a plan to give discounts on electricity bills for families that exert efforts to limit power consumption to less than the previous year.

According to Yeh Huey-ching, the director-general of the Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the policy aims to gradually eliminate the use of conventional light bulbs in Taiwan, where about 22 million incandescent bulbs are consumed per year.

Solar-power heaters

Liu said the government will encourage the installation of solar-powered water heaters at a rate of 35,000 sets each year to bring the total to 140,000 in four years.

Taiwan now ranks among world leaders in the development and production of solar-energy equipment and materials, including the solar batteries and panels.

However, most of the products are exported to overseas market every year while not many local residents on the island are able to share the benefits.

With its advanced technology and geographic position with constant exposures to the sun, Taiwan is in the best position to tap solar energy.

LPG taxis

The government has been remodeling vehicles at public offices and public transport systems to use clean LPG or biodiesel processed from waste cooking oil.

Converting all taxis in Taiwan into LPG vehicles is another major step to reduce carbon emissions.

Premier Liu set out a target to build more LPG refueling stations and converting all taxis running on Taiwan roads and streets in four years.

Other changes

Concerning other initiatives concerning the transformation of living environment and transport services, Liu's Cabinet will expand bicycle paths islandwide and build up public transportation networks in the rural regions.

Government agencies will also increase the number of rechargeable electric motorcycles to 100,000 islandwide.

In addition to beefing up research and development fund for developing renewable energy resources, Liu said the government will boost the special loans to NT$50 billion from NT$10 billion to help enterprises modernize their manufacturing facilities.

The building code will be revised to encourage the construction of "green buildings."

Responses

Environmentalists welcomed in general the new measures, but wanted more details.

Huang Sifon, director of an association promoting green transportation, said that the premier needed to explain what kind of bike paths he plans to build.

"What people need is to use the bicycle as a real means of transportation -- which can really make our transportation greener -- and not just as a recreational device that people enjoy in the evening on the riverside," she said, hoping that the bike paths will be set up for commuters.

"It is a good thing that the government will help convert taxis into LPG vehicles," said Pan Han-shen, secretary-general of the Green Party Taiwan, although other problems need to be solved for the new measure to have maximum impact.

He argued that there are too many taxis in Taiwan, and empty taxis running all day leads to a serious waste of energy.

According to the Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control under the Environmental Protection Administration, 14,702 of a total of 89,215 taxis in Taiwan have already converted to LPG systems as of the end of June this year.

Copyright © 2008 The China Post.

City Government Coming to a Home near You!

The latest craze in government is the “going green” fad. The City of Austin is taking this fad to a new level by proposing to require existing homes to meet energy ratings before a home owner can sell their home. These point-of-sale energy efficiency upgrades is part of Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s Climate Protection Plan.

The intent of the plan may sound reasonable. After all, energy efficient homes will save homeowners money in energy costs and would prevent the City of Austin from purchasing additional coal to keep the power plants operating. (Let’s forget about the South Texas Nuclear Project again, by the way.) But, what is unreasonable is for the city to mandate that certain items must be upgraded in an existing home that meets all other building and fire codes before the existing home can be put on the market. In essence, the City of Austin is now adding a “green code” to the existing building codes in place.

Who pays for these additional codes? First is the existing homeowner who must pay for a city audit to determine which items need to be upgraded and then pay for the upgrades before putting the home on the market. Second is the new homebuyer who must pay an additional cost for the home at the point-of-sale and then that new homeowner will pay higher property taxes as their appraisal is increased due to upgrades to the home. Third to pay is the rest of the taxpayers as the cost of additional home inspections, energy audits, and bureaucratic red tape will cost money.

The unintended consequences of this plan will be a decrease in housing sales in Austin, higher appraisal values (they went up quite a bit from last year already), and a continuation of higher home prices. Pretty soon, the average Austinite will be priced out of living in Austin by government regulations and restrictions. In a time when Mayor Wynn’s party is crying out against “predatory” mortgage lenders, it is in fact these same government officials that are creating policies to increase the value of a home and raise taxes to the point that individuals cannot afford to purchase a home.

The environmentalist movement is an anti-capitalist regime that is attempting to convince mainstream Americans who make this country great that they need to make sacrifices to counter the affect of global climate change. The planet was here long before we came here and it will be here long after we leave. Our quality of life on this planet is altered more by tax-and-spend politicians seeking to generate more revenue than it is by choosing to replace your light bulbs with mercury-based fluorescent lights.

The Austin Board of Realtors is right in its opposition to the point-of-sale energy efficient regulations as proposed by Mayor Will Wynn. Once this code is created, there is nothing that will check the growth and intrusion of government into future home sales in Austin for environmental reasons. The further manipulation of the free market by the environmentalists will only work to drive home prices higher.

What can you do, you ask? There are three Austin City Council candidates that are opposed to this plan who need our help. They are Jason Meeker, Cid Galindo, and Randi Shade. If Mayor Wynn has a City Council that agrees with him on this plan, there will be very little that can be done to stop the further increase of local government control in the housing market. Will Wynn does not desire a “livable” city but instead, a liberal city.

City Council Energy Rules afflict Austin Homeowners

People are waking up to the terrible and unnecessary burden the Austin City Council is placing on home-owners and home-sellers with their draconian energy-saving rules. This is based on the nutty and false idea that cutting energy use in Austin will help the climate (it won't; the impact will be miniscule to nonexistent - even if all Austin adopted huge changes, it would impact average global temperature by mere millionths of a degree). Like with their water-use restrictions, this is nanny-statist eco-extremism run amok. The large pocket-book pain ain't worth the fly-speck gain environment-wise.

Carl Tepper, President of the Small Business Group of Austin, sent this note:

The below ran on KXAN the other night as a follow-up to an earlier story about the same issue: KXAN News Video: "Realtors target new green remodeling idea"

Good for the public that they're calling City Hall demanding that their elected officials answer for this crazy idea. The "Task Force" should be ceased immediately and it's insulting that it was started in the first place.

In the story it's amazing that the elected officials would lie blatantly about their pet project. We put up with so much "weird" and creepy stuff from the City of Austin elected officials already, but this is directed straight at our homes. We have to ask ourselves where we draw the line.

This is a concept that WILL cost you thousands of dollars when you sell your home or business (yes, commercial property is included). They say that the "BUYER" will pay. But we all know that an appraiser will determine these costs and the BUYER will require the SELLER to pay in the end by a reduction of value. This is also a direct attack on the elderly, many of whom have much of their personal wealth attached to their homes.

The Austin Board of Realtors is right-on here. They deserve a commendation for sounding the warning about this ridiculous effort. THANK YOU Austin Board of Realtors.

The website Keep Austin Affordable has the latest on the impact of these rules and the effort to stop them.

Will PDO drive a cooler global climate?

Temp records show a recent dropoff in the past year, a downtrend that We've noted and Daily Tech and Anthony Watts and other Climate Skeptic blogs have as well. We are, this year at least, in Global Cooling. UPDATE: March sees an uptick with SH cooling and NH rebounding.



Two immediate questions are: Is this a blip for a season, i.e., just one anomalous cold winter and then back to 'global warming', or is it an indicator of a different trendline? And what is driving this change? It's too early to tell, but the answer may be "PDO". PDO stands for "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" and is a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability. Wikipedia PDO entry mentions that "Shifts in the IPO change the location and strength of El Niño (ENSO) activity."

In Climate Audit blog, commenter Ron Cram mentions that PDO has recently 'flipped' into cool mode:

You write that the recent cooling is driven by ENSO turning to La Nina. I disagree. While this has played a role, it is really the PDO turning to its cool phase in combination with La Nina. When PDO is in its warm phase, El Nino can be quite warm - such as in 1998. When the PDO is in its cool phase, the La Nina can be quite cool. But the opposite is not true. La Nina will never be this cool when the PDO is in its warm phase. ....
It takes four or five years for the PDO to shift from one regime to another. The Bratcher and Giese paper was written in 2002 and based on their observations they predicted the PDO would change regimes in “about four years.” It did not actually seem to shift until late 2007.

So while monthly values may fluctuate, I do not expect you will see any exceptionally warm El Ninos for the next 30 years or so. The exceptionally strong and cool La Ninas, which we have not seen in recent decades, will dominate this cool PDO regime.

The PDO history matches well with North American temperature history and drives mnay North American effects like salmon runs, and is linked to El Nino/La Nina cycle. If Cram's comment is right, then PDO cool phase may may lead to a stable-to-cooler temperature trendline for some time (decadal oscillation). This chart shows how 30 years of 'cool mode' PDO matched a cool trend in US temperatures from 1940-1970, while 30 years of 'warm' PDO matched recent warming:



A look at solar activity is also portending cooler trends.

Climate models that IPCC (and Gore) uses to promote the Global Warming 'crisis' are
overly simplistic and ignore decadal climate factors - at their peril:

Such predictions represent a huge gamble with public and policymaker opinion. If more-or-less steady global warming does not occur as forecast by these models, not only will professional reputations be at risk, but the need to reduce threats to the wide spectrum of serious and legitimate environmental concerns (including the human release of greenhouse gases) will be questioned by some as having been oversold. For better or worse, a failure to accurately predict the changes in the global average surface temperature, global average tropospheric temperature, ocean average heat content change, or Arctic sea ice coverage would raise questions on the reliance of global climate models for accurate prediction on multi-decadal time scales.

The failure of models to account for this trends leads them to overstate mankind's influence and understate natural variability. As natural variability rears up and potentially takes us in a cooler direction for a while, it will discredit the models that Global Warming fearmongering is based on.


I leave it as a question, not a statement, of whether PDO cycle will drive cooler global climate, since only time will tell whether cool PDO/ENSO effects will persist. But climate model teams should take this as a wake-up call to fix their models before reality overruns their credibility and leaves them falsified by data. Gore's claim that the science is 'done' and debate over is un-scientific bunk. There is plenty more to learn about earth's climate before we can declare certainty on these matters. But don't be surprised if the cool trend continues.

Hype meltdown over ice sheet

Media meltdown over Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse is over 0.01% of Antartica's ice sheet breaks off, while Antarctic ice mass has been increasing overall.

Speaking of meltdown, the IPCC is getting frantic over lack of actual warming and lack of ocean heating. A cold 2007 and 2008 is making trends look much less ominous than the hype predicted.

Global warming hot air is running up against cold, hard facts. Expect a storm front when the two finally clash in full.

Texas' Energy Future

We don't often quote the leftie site dKos, but a pro-nuclear Texas progressive there has a report on Texas nuclear power plant expansions:

The difficulties with the coal proposals and the remaining demand for increased baseload capacity provided a window for NRG Energy, the largest shareholder (44%) of the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) to propose expanding the 2 existing units at STP to 4. TXU similarly proposed expanding the two units at Comanche Peak (Dallas region) to four; these plans remain active after TXU scrapped most coal designs. Two additional plants on greenfield sites are also proposed; one by an Amarillo group, the other by Exelon corp. to be situated on the Gulf Coast somewhere near the STP site. In total, these represent somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 MW capacity on top of ~4500 MW existing nuclear capacity. For scale, Texas capacity was approx. 63,000 MW in Summer 2006.

The report indicates the proposed South Texas Plant expansion (from 2 to 4 units) got a lot of local support in public comment hearings:

On Wednesday, June 27, the NRC held an initial public hearing to discuss the Letter of Intent that NRG has filed and how the Combined-Operating License process differs from previous instances. I attended this meeting -- quite a trip at 80 miles from my residence in central Houston -- and found the crowd of nearly 180 people almost entirely in favor of the proposal. Notably, Bay City Mayor Richard Knapik and Matagorda Co. Judge Nate McDonald gave strong statements of support during the Q&A period. Additionally, a representative for US Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) informed me the congressman is also strongly in favor of the expansion. Local residents commended STP on being a clean and quiet neighbor, providing clean energy and high quality jobs to the region. The main exceptions were representatives from the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and the SEED Coalition who expressed doubts about the safety and "green-ness" of the plant.

The STP expansion appears to be "technologically and financially sound" and supported locally, so a very good chance it will sail through.

It would be great if this momentum continues, and Texas remains a key energy producer beyond the usual fossil fuels, adding more nuclear and wind to our energy portfolio.

Nothing but Blue Skies

Our air is cleaner than ever, but most Americans don't know that.

PAPER OR PAPER?

PAPER OR PAPER?

It’s the latest public policy fashion direct from San Francisco’s spring collection

San Francisco recently banned those plastic bags you carry your groceries home in. They have been deemed bad for the environment so San Francisco supermarkets and pharmacies will be required to use recycled paper bags, canvas bags or compostable plastic bags..

Austin, not to be left behind when it comes to petty, harassing laws, is considering a similar measure. As City Councilman Lee Leffingwell put it, “We got the idea from San Francisco.” He is reported to have the support of Mayor Will Wynn and Councilman Mike Martinez.

As in San Francisco, the main rap against plastic bags is that they supposedly clog the landfill. Leffingwell, using figures from San Francisco, estimates at least 1,000 tons of plastic bags make it to Austin’s landfill each year.

Leffingwell is also concerned about the wold’s supply of crude oil. He noted that 430,000 gallons of crude oil will only produce 100 million plastic bags – barely enough to get us through a weekend’s shopping at HEB.

He might have mentioned -- but didn’t -- that 430,000 gallons sounds like a lot of crude but it’s less than 7,900 barrels. And he left us to just guess how many barrels of oil are consumed to fuel the chain saws and logging trucks needed to harvest enough trees to produce 100 million paper bags. The Film and Bag Federation reports that plastic bags consume 40 per cent less energy to produce than paper. Not to mention the destroyed trees – which contribute more to the environment than crude oil sitting under the sand in the Near East.

If plastic bags are clogging our landfills, we have to ask, “What are they doing in the landfill?” According to the Austin American-Statesman, an outfit called Trex which manufactures decking and railing is planing to purchase about 5.6 billion (that’s billion as in Perot) used plastic bags this year alone.

Like a lot of Americans, Austinites have become accustomed to tossing recyclable items into a separate receptacle. They can include used plastic bags if they asked to. We could avoid yet another annoying regulation and the city could maybe pick up a few bucks to spend on filling potholes on our streets. Remember streets?

Maybe it’s time Austin got over it’s fascination with San Francisco and tried to function in the real world where the rest of us live.

Bob Ward

Globaloney Fears Shouldn't Dictate Policies

They have amassed evidence. Some doubters lurk and poke holes in it, after all most of the 'evidence' is speculative and uncertain; but the evidence from officialdom has been analyzed and judged overwhelming. They even have the UN backing them up, and could that be wrong? It's a slam dunk!

The politicians chime in with scaremongering statements and scenarios. A "crisis approaching" and "global catastrophe". We are told that the threat is real, the time for talk is over, the time for action is now, and if we don't act preemtively and soon it could be too late.

Sound familiar?

It should be. It's the fearmongers script for the global warming "Crisis".

The liberal intelligensia consensus on global warming is to pretend that there is a consensus and to shut off any debate, and hoodwink the public into thinking that any skepticism is illegitimate. Thus, in the Statesman of Friday, April 6, Senator John Kerry wrote:
"It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth policians" says John Kerry, in a recent piece of fiction that assures us, falsely, that inaction would lead to a "global catastrophe". He opines, almost afraid to let the skeptics even be heard: "we cannot allow doubters to freeze us into inaction".

But now is the time for debate, and for serious questions and understanding, especially if we are to embark on significant and costly regulatory changes. Claims of urgency are absurd to anyone who considers the real science of climate change: The doomsday scenarios posited, of massive temperature increases, require commensurately massive increases in CO2 in the atmosphere, specifically a doubling of CO2 levels, yet we are increasing those levels at a tortoise-speed pace of 0.3% per year. The false urgency is especially un-wise given the false exaggerations of alarmists like Al Gore and John Kerry.

John Kerry said: "And yet we have allowed worlderwide temperatures to heat up an average of 1.4 degrees in the last six years alone." Wrong, Senator. The average rise in temperatures has been 0.6 degrees Centigrade over the last century, and there has been no rise in many critical measurements (such as satellite temperature measurements) in the past six years. Some scientists contend that much of the temperature variation in recent decades is at leastly partyl due to natural causes, and certainly the history of the earth shows that natural climate change has happened all the time.

The politicians and some climate scientists have been playing the game of hyping fear for some time, and many have admitted as much:
"To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."
--Steven Schneider, Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989; and American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996.

H. L. Mencken once said: "The politicians are selling fear, and they of all people know that fear is the best way to get people to do what you want. The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. ”

If we are going to base policies on anything, it should be based on the real impacts of global warming, considered only after a lengthy debate on the matter, not the hyped up fears of politicians. Let us not let Al Gore and his acolytes prey upon our fears. We have time for reasoned debate. After all, the earth is not going anywhere.

Tale of Two Houses

Energy Use Hypocrisy

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

Environmentalist Hyperbole

My school-age son asserted that 17 species were going extinct per hour, claiming it was true because he read it in a magazine. He has a lot to learn; unless it is in The American Spectator, I'm as cautious with media reporting as when a cold caller announces I've won a sweepstakes. I found the number unbelievable and was sure it was debunked in "The Skeptical Environmentalist" among other places. Sure enough, it is false:

In 1990, the World Conservation Union commissioned a report to investigate rates of extinction, the findings of which can be seen in Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction by T Whitmore and A Sayers. The report found that the recorded rates for extinction remain 'very small', believing it to be about 2300 species, or 0.8 percent, per decade. Bjørn Lomborg, after studying a number of reports and extinction estimates - including the UN Global Diversity Report - reckons an extinction rate for all species of about 0.7 percent per 50 years is pretty accurate.

But wait, the environmentalists say Lomborg is wrong and it's higher:"Estimates for current species extinction rates range from 100 to 10,000 times that, but most hover close to 1,000 times prehuman levels (0.1 percent per year)." Yet when you peel the data back you find numbers consistent with Lomborg's estimates, for example - "anywhere from one to several bird species go extinct annually ... 0.01-0.03 percent of living bird species are extinguished per year." Even the 'pro-environmentalist' numbers show that the "17 per hour" extinction claims are off by a factor of 100 or 1,000.

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore questions the extinction numbers that are based on models not measurements:

This gives rise to the obvious concern that if the trees are cut down the habitats or homes will be lost and the species that live in them will die. Indeed, in 1996 the World Wildlife Fund, at a media conference in Geneva, announced that 50,000 species are going extinct each year due to human activity. And the main cause of these 50,000 extinctions, they said, is commercial logging. The story was carried around the world by Associated Press and other media and hundreds of millions of people came to believe that forestry is the main cause of species extinction.

During the past three years I have asked the World Wildlife Fund on many occasions to please provide me with a list of some of the species that have supposedly become extinct due to logging. They have not offered up a single example as evidence. In fact, to the best of our scientific knowledge, no species has become extinct in North America due to forestry.

Where are these 50,000 species that are said to be going extinct each year? They are in a computer model in Edward O. Wilson's laboratory at Harvard University. They are electrons on a hard drive, they have no Latin names, and they are in no way related to any direct field observations in any forest.

Why is such hyperbole tolerated in environmental reporting, and how is it that the loud proponents of such hyperbole claim the mantle of "science"?
Even some environmentalists ask of their own movement's irrationality, "How Sick is That?"