The climate change conference starting in Cancun Monday is doomed to failure. Many factors contribute to this, such as a healthy skepticism about how much should be spent to remediate climate change, but one alone guarantees failure: Chinese coal production and policy. When climate change soared up the American agenda with the election of President Obama, those not swept up in blind optimism were doubtful China could be convinced to go along. The debacle of the Copenhagen summit last year finally brought the administration and its supporters back to reality.
What is the Obama Administration thankful for, or at least hopeful for, this Thanksgiving? That controversial Thanksgiving Eve announcements won’t receive any media attention. While most Americans were in transit Wednesday afternoon, the Department of Interior was finalizing its polar bear habitat protection, which sets aside 187,000 square miles of sea ice off the coast of Alaska as critical habitat. The announcement does not prohibit economic activity in these areas, but it could make it much more difficult for oil and gas development, since the designation requires federal officials to …
Typically the largest wealth distribution program that occurs in Cancun, Mexico, is college students spending their parents’ money. That could change at the upcoming United Nations climate summit if developing countries clamoring for money to cope with global warming get their wish. With each passing year, it’s clear that international climate change talks are less about climate and more about wealth redistribution. The latest case in point comes from United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) official Ottmar Edenhofer. In a recent interview with Germany’s NZZ Online, Edenhofer lays …
When an environmental law or regulation passes in California, it usually comes as a surprise to no one. After all, it’s California. So when the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved regulations to reduce diesel emissions—despite opposition from the trucking industry—most thought of it as “California being California.” Now California may significantly reduce the regulations, because scientists drastically exaggerated the diesel emission levels from off-road machinery. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
If you take Al Gore and replace his global warming apocalypticism with a careful pragmatism and his insistence for energy taxes with a love for human innovation, research and creativity, you will end up with someone similar to Skeptical Environmentalist author Bjorn Lomborg. At The Heritage Foundation Bloggers Briefing this Tuesday, Lomborg said he considers global warming to be a legitimate threat – one that is exaggerated and can be handled through the power of human ingenuity. Lomborg shows his other way to tackle global warming in his new film …
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is “an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 ‘to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense.’” It can now add “fund plays on climate change” to that list. The New York Times reports that the federal agency will award $700,000 of taxpayer money to a New York theater company to produce a show on climate change. Titled, “The Great Immensity,” the production will explore “the emotional and psychological aspects of the current …
Great Britain’s most prominent scientific body significantly softened its position on global warming after 43 of its members complained that the previous position did not take into account dissenting evidence. Although the Royal Society’s climate change guide still asserts that greenhouse gas gases resulting from human activity contributes to warming, it does so more prudently: There is very strong evidence to indicate that climate change has occurred on a wide range of different timescales from decades to many millions of years; human activity is a relatively recent addition to the …
For the past year, the phrase “cap and trade” was as taboo as using Lord Voldemort’s name in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Wizards scared of the Dark Lord referred to Voldemort as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” For those hoping to pass cap and trade, it became “The-Energy-Policy-That-Will-Create-Jobs.” But opponents correctly labeled cap and trade a significant tax, and the bill died in the Senate. In fact, congressional votes on cap and trade are a major talking point on campaign ads—ads that vilify Members who voted for the Waxman–Markey cap-and trade-bill last …
Nowhere in the Clean Air Act does the term “greenhouse gas” (GHG) appear, yet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is invoking the statute to unleash economy-busting emissions strictures. The agency’s latest power grab is not going unchallenged, however. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed a federal lawsuit to force the EPA to reconsider the regulatory scheme that will otherwise encumber the energy and manufacturing sectors as well as millions of offices, apartment buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, houses of worship, theaters, and sports arenas.
Proponents of domestic and international global warming regulations like to argue that human-induced climate change could affect the safety of not only the U.S. but other countries as well. They suggest that global warming will lead to more natural disasters, which will in turn lead to increased global conflict. Even the Department of Defense now considers climate change a threat to U.S. security. Exercises from the National Defense University concluded that “over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast …
