Last year at this time, the United Nations was coming to grips with the fact that the Copenhagen climate change summit would not produce a legally binding climate pact to succeed the failed Kyoto Protocol. In retrospect, nearly everyone acknowledges that the Copenhagen conference failed utterly to achieve its objectives. …
International climate change talks kick off yesterday in Cancun, Mexico, and the expectations aren’t nearly as high as they were last year at the summit in Copenhagen, where no country committed to any legal binding agreement. This year in Cancun, leaders from nearly 200 countries will come together at the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
