Does the ethanol mandate increase CO2 emissions?

by Marlo Lewis
May 27, 2009 @ 5:42 pm

That may seem counter-intuitive, because burning ethanol merely puts back into the air the carbon dioxide (CO2) that corn crops recently pulled out of it, whereas burning gasoline liberates carbon that had been stored in geologic deposits for millions of years.

But other factors come into play, such as the fossil energy inputs required to produce the corn, turn it into ethanol, and deliver the ethanol to market.

In addition, as EPA argues in its proposed rule to implement the renewable fuel standard program established by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), expanding corn production into forest and grass lands can release substantial amounts of carbon stored in soils and trees.

Similarly, when U.S. farmers grow corn in areas previously used to produce soy beans, for example, farmers in Brazil have an incentive to convert forest land into soy plantations.

As you might expect, EPA’s use of life-cycle analysis, although required by EISA, drives the ethanol lobby and its congressional allies up the wall. They claim it is ridiculous to link increased corn production here to increased CO2 emissions in developing countries.

But, as my colleague, agricultural commodity analyst Dave Juday, demonstrates, the numbers paint a very clear picture. With Dave’s permission, I reproduce below an email he sent around earlier today.

* * *

With regard to GHG and the EPA’s RFS [renewable fuel standard] 2 rule, … the concept of “indirect land use changes” (ILUC) get criticized for being faulty, but it actually is pretty sound.

Consider, if ethanol drives up US corn plantings (which it did) and drives down US soybean plantings and production (which it did, because the US – the largest producer and exporter – has only so much farm land and not much tillable acreage to expand) and thereby raises the world price of soybeans, it raises the incentives to grow soybeans elsewhere in the world. It just so happens Brazil – which is the world’s second largest producer and exporter – is the most likely place where additional soybeans will be grown on virgin land because that is where the virgin land is.

The real weak link in this GHG lifecycle emissions concept is the ability to measure and value the carbon emissions and sequestration and the process by which “value” gets assigned to practices and manufacturing processes. Yet, as might be expected from ethanol advocates, it is the simple, fundamental, and rational economic concept that is argued against. Consider the perspectives shared by a lobbyist and a US Senator on the issue of “indirect land use changes” driven by US biofuel policy:

* Basically, the EPA has determined that the production of ethanol in America is forcing land use changes in Brazil and other foreign countries to destroy their valuable rain forests to produce farm commodities to make up for reduced exports of these commodities from the United States. Mr. Chairman, I have been in Washington for a long time, but I have never heard of a more bizarre concept. – Tom Buis, CEO, Growth Energy
* Every chance I get, I’m going to bring this issue up. It’s so obvious that the EPA’s rationale doesn’t meet the common sense test. It’s ridiculous to think that Brazilian farmers are looking to see what Iowa farmers are doing to determine how they run their own business, and quite frankly it’s plain unfair to farmers. – Honorable Charles Grassley, US Senator (R-IA)

Addressing these comments above is one of those cases where a picture is indeed worth 1,000 words:



SOURCE: USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service: Production, Supply, and Distribution Online

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Compare and Contrast

by Iain Murray
May 26, 2009 @ 2:30 pm

Bjorn Lomborg, November 2007:

…although it may seem almost comically straightforward, one of the best temperature-reducing approaches is very simple: paint things white. Cities have a lot of black asphalt and dark, heat-absorbing structures. By increasing reflection and shade, a great deal of heat build-up can be avoided. Paint most of a city and you could lower the temperature by 10C.

Steven Chu, May 2009:

Professor Steven Chu, speaking at the opening of the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, for which The Times is media partner, said this simple and “completely benign” approach to “geo-engineering” could have a vast impact at low cost. By lightening all paved surfaces and roofs to the colour of cement, it would be possible to reduce carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world’s cars off the roads for 11 years, he said.

I ask you to compare and contrast because one of these men is an “evil delayer” (or worse), and the other a planetary savior. Yet the savior is now adopting a policy advocated for two years by the “delayer.”

Perhaps there is hope for the global warming debate yet.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Editorial Cartoon Backfires

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 26, 2009 @ 11:35 am

Unless I’m totally misunderstanding the sketch of today’s editorial cartoon by the Washington Post’s Tom Toles, which unimaginatively illustrates climate change “deniers” like a head-in-the-sand ostrich, he also also has drawn a huge sun which apparently is throwing intense heat on the “deniers” (which are supposed to be Republicans, I guess).

But in drawing the sun Toles has unwittingly made a case for solar activity being a stronger climate driver than greenhouse gases. I think Harvard solar scientist Willie Soon would love it.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Waxman-Markey: Coercion for its own sake

by Marlo Lewis
May 22, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

Most media coverage of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), focuses on the bill’s cap-and-trade program and the free rationing coupons (emission allowances) that the bill’s co-sponsors, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), had to hand out to utilities and other interests to secure their support for the legislation.

But the cap-and-trade program occupies only one of four of the bill’s main sections (”titles”). Other titles contain a host of mandates and “incentives” (carrots and sticks) to reshape energy and transportation markets.

ACES, for example:

* Requires utilities to meet a certain percentage of their load with electricity generated from renewable sources, like wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal.
* Promotes small-scale “distributed generation” of renewable electricity by offering three renewable electricity credits (instead of one credit) for each MWh produced.
* Authorizes electric power generators to create a Carbon Storage Research Consortium with the power to assess “fees” (aka taxes) totalling approximately $1 billion annually to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration plants.
* Directs the EPA Administrator to hand out free rationing coupons to subsidize CCS.
* Establishes a CCS mandate requiring new coal-fired power plants to emit 65% less carbon dioxide if permitted after 2020, and emit 50% less if permitted between 2009 and 2020; also requires EPA to review these standards not later than 2025 and every five years thereafter.
* Requires utilities to ”consider” developing plans to support electric vehicle infrastructure, and provides assistance (including free emission allowances) to subsidize electric vehicles and infrastructure.
* Mandates stricter building codes achieving 30% higher energy efficiency in 2010 and 50% higher in 2016 for new buildings, and establishes a “building retrofit program” for existing residential and nonresidential buildings.
* Mandates tougher energy efficiency standards for indoor and outdoor lighting, hot food holding cabinets, bottle-type drinking water dispensers, hot tubs, commercial-grade natural gas furnaces, televisions, and other appliances.
* Requires the President, EPA, the Department of Transportation (DOT), and California to establish greenhouse gas (GHG)/fuel economy standards for new passenger cars and light trucks.
* Requires and sets deadlines for EPA to establish GHG emission standards for heavy-duty engines and vehicles and non-road vehicles including marine vessels, locomotives, and aircraft.
* Requires States to establish goals and submit transportation plans to reduce transport sector GHG emissions, and imposes sanctions on States that fail to comply.
* Requires the Deparment of Energy (DOE) to establish industrial energy-efficiency standards.

These measures are economically and environmentally irrational even if you believe that global warming is a “planetary emergency.” As the Charles River Associates (CRA) report for the National Black Chamber of Commerce points out, the renewable electricity, CCS, electric vehicle, and energy efficiency mandates will not yield net emission reductions beyond what the bill’s emission caps already require. The targeted interventions may accelerate GHG reductions in some industries or sectors, but that just allows emissions to increase elsewhere in the economy without breaking the cap.

The rationale for cap-and-trade is that it allows the market to find the least-costly methods of reducing emissions. By superimposing renewable electricity, CCS, electric vehicle, and energy efficiency mandates on that system, Waxman-Markey dictates the means as well as the goals.

There are two possible outcomes. First, which is exceedingly unlikely, the cap motivates reductions in exactly the same ways as the targeted mandates and incentives. In that case, observes CRA, the mandates “would waste resources on needless monitoring, measuring, enforcement and compliance.”

If, as almost certainly would happen, the mandates compel different actions and investments than industry would otherwise undertake to meet the cap, then the same emission reductions would be achieved at higher cost. The targeted mandates and incentives “can only substitute more costly GHG cuts for those that could have been made at lower cost.”

So what is the point? Why tout cap-and-trade as an “efficient,” “market-based” solution and then gunk it up with cookie-cutter, command-and-control measures?

Several reasons come to mind including deep distrust of markets, an abiding belief in old-fashioned central planning, the desire to rig market outcomes to benefit or punish certain interests, and the desire to create more work (endless full employment) for bureaucrats and lawyers.

One that should not be discounted, though, is the pleasure some people derive from placing their heels on other people’s necks. Politics is chiefly about the organization and application of power. It tends to attract people who enjoy bullying and coercing others. To regulate is to coerce. Command-and-control regulation is more coercive than the market-based variety. So despite their real or feigned enthusiasm for cap-and-trade, many climate activists are hopelessly addicted to mandates.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Obama CAFE kills

by Sam Kazman
May 22, 2009 @ 12:43 pm

President Obama unveiled Tuesday a plan to sharply increase federal gas mileage rules for vehicles sold in the United States, eventually bringing the requirement up to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Unfortunately, these rules – known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards – have the deadly effect of causing new cars to be lighter, smaller and less crashworthy.

CAFE is among the deadliest government regulations we have, and with today’s announcement it’s going to get even deadlier. It kills consumers by reducing vehicle size, and now it may well kill car companies by forcing them to produce cars that consumers don’t want. The only redeeming aspect of the President’s announcement is that there’ll be only one standard imposed on the industry, rather both national and California standards. But that just means carmakers will have one noose around their necks instead of two.

A 2002 National Research Council study found that the federal CAFE standards contributed to about 2,000 deaths per year through their restrictions on car size and weight. An increase in the severity of the rules will only raise that death toll. Shockingly, the federal agency tasked with making Americans safer on the road – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – has refused to acknowledge this fact, even after being overturned by a federal court for ignoring the issue.

As bad as CAFE is, it’s an even more ominous sign that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is being joined in this initiative by the Environmental Protection Agency. Longtime observers of the EPA know that while the agency’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, it’s usually not in that order.

In addition to being sold as a global warming measure, the tightening of CAFE standards is, even less convincingly, being promoted as a boon for economic growth. Advocates have claimed that more fuel efficient cars are the future of the auto industry, yet have not explained why this should require government mandates.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

This is How Climate Research Works Too

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 22, 2009 @ 2:58 pm

With the EPA and Congress barreling towards greenhouse gas regulation, you might think that all the states and local governments putting together their own plans might declare victory and move on to more pressing matters like creating make-work with federal stimulus money. You’d be wrong.

The Almanac newspaper reports today that the Menlo Park (Calif.) City Council earlier this week approved a climate action plan created by its volunteer Green Ribbon Citizens’ Committee. As with TARP, however, it appears local leaders may only be willing to go as far as tax-grabbers from larger jurisdictions will pay for them to go:

The City Council approved the plan in a unanimous vote at its May 19 meeting. Prepared by a consultant that specializes in creating climate strategies for local jurisdictions and revised by city staff members, the plan expands upon and fleshes out a dense list of recommendations prepared by the volunteer Green Ribbon Citizens’ Committee in late 2007, council members say.

They acknowledge, however, that (the plan is) incomplete. The city exhausted the $38,000 it expects to receive in grant money to prepare the plan before it had a chance to fully revise the document, and council members look poised to allow a city commission to work on the plan — possibly in consultation with the Green Ribbon committee.

Undoubtedly it was the “consultant” who exhausted the $38k (which the city doesn’t even have yet!). Pretty good gig when these eco-consultants can drop their “climate plan” template on a municipality and collect a cool five-figure (plus?) sum for filling in the blanks. By the way, local watchbloggers, you might check how these consultants are working, lobbying, and wining and dining city officials to get these deals. Back to The Almanac:

Much of the discussion at the May 19 meeting centered on how the city could quantify its efforts to rein in the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere. In an impassioned speech to the council, Mitch Slomiak, head of the Green Ribbon committee, urged the city to set measurable goals in reducing emissions, and to treat its “carbon budget” in the same way it regards its general operating fund budget.

You know, like their personal slush fund and favor factory. Like Waxman-Markey.

But council members struggled with how to make the issue tangible.

Easy — make it as tangible as CO2!

Unlike most of the line items in the city’s budget, a decreased carbon output won’t provide a direct benefit to the city.

Hmmm…truly a dilemma for politicians who expect something in exchange for wasting their constituents’ money.

“One might almost conclude that anything we do here is basically symbolic, and setting an example,” said Councilman Andy Cohen.

Money quote: About as close as you’ll get to hearing a global warming alarmist politician saying their climate plans are meaningless.

Councilman John Boyle said he was struggling with the idea of how the plan would fit in with the city’s budget. He noted that even actions that would pay for themselves, such as installing solar panels on city buildings, often take decades to recoup their costs.

But you’re forgetting all the green jobs!

The plan leaves much to be desired, but council members say that approving it is an important gesture — and that its existence may help the city in competing for grants, especially through the federal stimulus bill.

Aha, the real motive — meaningless gestures paid for by (not yet issued) grants, so you can get more grants!

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Waxman-Markey: What’s new, what’s old?

by Marlo Lewis
May 15, 2009 @ 8:40 pm

Today, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) released a new 932-page version of their cap-and-trade bill and a summary explaining how emission allowances will be allocated.

President Obama had campaigned on a cap-and-trade plan in which 100% of the emission allowances would be auctioned. His FY 2010 Budget also calls for a 100% auction system (pp. 21 and 100), generating anywhere from $646 billion to nearly $2 trillion in revenues over ten years.

Of course, the last thing companies subject to emission caps want to do is pay $646 billion or more for the right to produce or use energy. So U.S. CAP, the main corporate lobby for cap-and-trade, lobbied for a system with mostly free rationing coupons, and that’s what they got.

Under the revised Waxman-Markey bill, from 2012 through 2025, the electricity sector will receive 35% of the allowances gratis and natural gas distribution companies will receive 9%, with free distributions phasing out from 2026 through 2030. In all, 85% of the rationing coupons are allocated free-of-charge to industry and other interests.

The bill instructs gas and electric utilities to use the free allocations to “protect consumers” from ”price increases.” This is odd. The whole point of cap-and-trade is to raise energy prices. As candidate Obama said in a moment of candor, electricity prices will “necessarily skyrocket.” That’s how cap-and-trade discourages consumption, which reduces emissions. It’s also how cap-and-trade rigs the market in favor of non-carbon energy, which also supposedly reduces emissions.

Perhaps what Waxman and Markey mean is that U.S. utilities will not be allowed to double-dip as European utilities did in Europe’s Emission Trading System (ETS). European utilities got emission allowances for free but claimed them as an expense and then passed the imaginary costs on to customers by raising electric rates (see pages 43-46 of Open Europe’s report on the ETS).

Does this mean Waxman-Markey would not have severe economic impacts of the sort the Heritage Foundation projects in its May 13, 2009 study? No!

The Heritage study estimates that by 2035, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade plan will:

* Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
* Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
* Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
* Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
* Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
* Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500, and
* Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

The Heritage folks are undoubtedly going to re-crunch the numbers in light changes made to the bill.

However, the big picture should not change just because Waxman and Markey have decided to distribute 85% of the ration coupons free-of-charge. What chiefly determines any cap-and-trade scheme’s macro-economic and energy price impacts are the stringency of the caps, not how allowances are distributed under the caps.

As the caps tighten, the number of ration coupons declines, and so does the supply of carbon-based energy. As the supply falls relative to demand, energy prices increase, which then reduces economic output and employment.

So don’t be fooled! Electricity and fuel prices will reflect allowance prices, which will be determined by supply and demand, not by whether the allowance was initially auctioned or handed out for free. Think of it this way. The price at which a scalper could sell Super Bowl tickets outside the stadium is the same whether he bought the ticket himself or found it on the ground.

It is therefore noteworthy that although the caps are identical in both versions of the bill from 2030 through 2050, the caps are generally less restrictive in the revised bill from 2012 through 2029. For example, the original version caps 2020 emissions at 4,873 million metric tons, the revised version at 5,056 mmt.

I’m counting on our friends at Heritage to explain what these changes mean in terms of jobs, energy prices, and GDP. Once thing is certain. The bill is still a de facto energy tax; and if enacted, it will still be the biggest tax hike in American history.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Waxman Deal in Place?

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 15, 2009 @ 5:08 pm

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Rep. Henry Waxman thinks (despite what Rep. Joe Barton says) he has a deal to pass his cap-and-energy-tax legislation out of an Energy and Environment Subcommittee:

Congressional leaders who support a new cap on greenhouse-gas emissions reached agreement on a plan Thursday to ease the burden it will impose on refiners, paving the way for a key House panel to vote on the climate-change proposal next week.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., signed off on the compromise with Texas Democrats Gene Green and Charles Gonzalez. The cornerstone of their deal was a commitment to donate 2 percent of valuable carbon dioxide emissions permits to refiners.

Coal and electric have been declared the “big winners,” but the refinery permits do not appear to be enough (see 5/15 entry) for “Big Oil:”

Unfortunately, while the proposal is meant to solve a serious environmental challenge and spur growth in our weak economy, its inequitable system of allocations will have a disproportionate adverse impact on consumers and producers of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, crude oil and natural gas. Those who drive, fly or take the bus or train to work will shoulder a disproportionate burden and this must be rectified. Emission allowances will be distributed inequitably, ultimately imposing greater costs on consumers and producers of oil and gas.

No official comment was immediately available from residential thermostat adjusters or do-it-yourself gasoline pumpers.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Biofuels Bailouts

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 15, 2009 @ 2:53 pm

Never mind the allegedly detrimental effect biofuels have by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and therefore global warming — the Obama Administration will continue to blast CO2 in the atmosphere by burning vegetation. It’s not a surprise as the president talked about it during his campaign, but now the ugly details are coming out and the new subsidies are being unveiled. From a May 5 White House press release:

President Obama today announced steps to further his Administration’s commitment to advance biofuels research and commercialization. Specifically, he signed a Presidential Directive establishing a Biofuels Interagency Working Group, announced additional Recovery Act funds for renewable fuel projects, and also announced his Administration’s notice of a Proposed Rulemaking on the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The BIWG is to be co-chaired by Obama’s superheroic force of top eco-bureaucrats: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Part of their responsibilities will be to:

* Immediately begin restructuring existing investments in renewable fuels as needed to preserve industry employment; and
* Develop a comprehensive approach to accelerating the investment in and production of American biofuels and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

How is this plan to reward/subsidize failure and nonproductive jobs to be accomplished? Via bailout funds, of course:

The President also announced that $786.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be provided to accelerate advanced biofuels research and development and expand commercialization by providing additional funding for commercial biorefineries.

So thanks to taxpayers, you can add bailouts for projects like this to the “rescued” banks, insurance companies and automakers:

Auction of F&S Oil’s biodiesel plant attracts just one bid

CHESHIRE, Conn. — A New Hampshire-based wholesale petroleum distributor submitted the only bid Thursday for F&S Oil’s biofuel production facility, but the total amount of the bid is uncertain and the bidding process remains open.

Frank Day, of Total Energy Solutions of Portsmouth, N.H., offered $75,000 for the entire plant during Thursday’s auction…

The bid was significantly lower than the $4 million to $12 million value suggested by a consultant…

The auctions, which attracted about two dozen people, were conducted by Thomas Gagliardi Jr., president of Thomas Industries of Guilford. Carlton E. Helming, the court-appointed receiver for F&S Oil, said he was “very disappointed” with the bid….

Or this:

Athens Biodiesel Facing Foreclosure

Problem-plagued Athens Biodiesel (in Alabama) is facing foreclosure on its local operation by a California lending institution. The News Courier has run foreclosure notices on March 31, April 7 and Tuesday stating that the Temecula Valley Bank in Temecula, Calif., has instituted foreclosure proceedings on a loan taken out July 13, 2007.

In early March The News Courier reported Athens Utilities had cut electrical service to the plant off East Airport Road on the site of the old Knight Lumber Co. for non-payment of bills. Melvin Kilgore, owner of Athens Biodiesel, also acknowledged that he was a pay cycle behind in his payroll of about nine remaining employees….

Or this:

VeraSun auction of U.S. BioEnergy planned by March

NEW YORK, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Ethanol maker VeraSun Energy Corp received interim approval from a Delaware bankruptcy court judge to auction most of its U.S. BioEnergy ethanol plants by the end of March, according to court documents.

VeraSun, which filed for bankruptcy in October due to high corn prices, weak ethanol prices and a lack of access to financing, has had the U.S. BioEnergy plants idled since last year. It bought the plants for less than $700 million in 2008….

Should I keep Googling? These aren’t hard to find…perhaps some of the cap-and-tax carbon credits can also help bail these folks out.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Stimulus Ignites Job-Killing Trade War With Canada

by Hans Bader
May 15, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

The $800 billion stimulus package pushed through by Obama has ignited a trade war with Canada, reports the Washington Post. In response to vague “buy American” provisions in the stimulus, “A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.”

A trade war is also underway with Mexico, thanks to a provision in the stimulus package that blocked a measley 97 Mexican truckers from U.S. roads. That minor NAFTA violation “caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade,” destroying 40,000 American jobs.

Obama’s protectionism echoes Herbert Hoover’s protectionism, which helped spawn the Great Depression. President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which helped turn a recession into the Great Depression by triggering a trade war with other countries.

Unemployment is now even higher than what Obama predicted it would be without the stimulus. The White House now admits that there will be no job growth until 2010. The Congressional Budget Office repeatedly predicted that the stimulus would shrink the economy “in the long run“), but increase it in the short run, i.e., by the next election.

But so little of the stimulus money has gone into sectors of the economy where unemployment is high (like construction and transportation) that it seems to be doing nothing for the economy even in the short run. The $100 billion it pours into education — a sector where unemployment is very low, and where the U.S. also spends more per capita than almost every other country — appears likely to be wasted. Only 5.9 percent of the stimulus will go to transportation, a small amount compared to the amount of money it showers on state governments, which are using it to continue to provide lucrative pension and health benefits for state employees, whose wages continue to rise much faster than private sector workers.

Obama is following in Herbert Hoover’s footsteps on taxes and spending. In the Great Depression, Hoover raised marginal tax rates to 63%, and went on a deficit spending binge. Similarly, Obama has proposed higher marginal tax rates, which will produce another $1.9 trillion in tax increases. One of Obama’s own advisers now says that “the barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.” He compares Obama’s tax increases to those that deepened the Great Depression.

Hoover imposed regressive taxes that burdened consumers, like the Revenue Act of 1932. Obama is now doing the same thing through his proposed $2 trillion cap-and-trade carbon tax. Obama privately admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle (which didn’t report it) that under his “plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” As Obama admitted, that cost would be directly passed “on to consumers” — just the way Herbert Hoover’s 1932 excise tax increase was. Although the tax’s supporters claim it will cut greenhouse gas emissions, it may perversely increase them and also result in dirtier air. It is also chock full of corporate welfare, regional favoritism, political pay-offs, and give-aways to special interests.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Digital economy increases emissions: Mark Mills gets last laugh

by Marlo Lewis
May 14, 2009 @ 7:21 pm

Back in 1999 and 2000, a fierce debate raged as to whether digital networks and devices increase or decrease electricity consumption and emissions. Does the growth of the digital economy jeopardize the Kyoto agenda by increasing emissions? Or is the Internet a “green” force reducing our energy and carbon intensity?

On one side of the debate, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argued that the Internet could help reduce emissions by, for example, promoting telecommuting, online shopping, and efficient supply-chain management. On the other side, technology analyst Mark Mills and co-author Peter Huber argued that the rapid proliferation of digital devices and networks was increasing demand for high-quality (largely coal-based) power.

The Berkeley Lab researchers directed a lot of fire at Mills’s ”ballpark” estimate that Internet-based equipment and networks already accounted for 8% of U.S. electricity demand. I won’t try to settle that part of the controversy.

However, a just-published study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that Mills was right about the big picture. Climatewire (subscription required) gives the gist of the study in its headline: “Soaring electricity use by new electronic devices imperils climate change efforts.” Herewith a few highlights:

* Efforts by countries worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy security are in trouble if nothing is done to check the energy gobbled by both information and communication technologies and consumer electronics.
* Energy used by computers and consumer electronics will double by 2022 and increase threefold by 2030.
* The projected increase is equivalent to the current combined total residential electricity consumption of the United States and Japan.
* To operate these new devices, households around the world will spend around $200 billion in electricity bills and require the addition of approximately 280 Gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity between now and 2030.
* The number of people using PCs will exceed 1 billion over the next seven months, and nearly 2 billion television sets are in use worldwide, averaging more than 1.3 sets per each household with access to electricity.
* More than 3.5 billion people will be mobile phone subscribers by 2010.
* In many households in OECD countries, electronic devices–a category that includes televisions, desktop computers, laptops, DVD players and recorders, modems, printers, set-top boxes, portable telephones, answering machines, game consoles, audio equipment, clocks, battery chargers, mobile phones and children’s games–consume more electricity than do traditional large appliances.
* Household use of electronic devices is the major reason that residential electricity consumption is increasing in most countries.
* Computers, related equipment and consumer electronics are responsible for close to 15 percent of total residential electricity consumption today, a share similar to that of other major appliance categories such as water heating or refrigeration.
* Even with improvements foreseen in energy efficiency, consumption by electronics in the residential sector is set to increase by 250 percent by 2030.
* “The share of electricity consumption by these appliances is therefore increasing to the extent that they will most likely comprise the largest end-use category in many countries before 2020, unless effective steps are taken,” said IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka in a press release.
* “These estimates suggest that total residential electricity consumption will increase more than many previous forecasts, and therefore pose a serious challenge to all governments with policy ambitions to increase energy security and economic development, and to mitigate climate change,” states the report.

Criticism of Huber and Mills got pretty nasty at times. But, as the old adage says: He who laughs last, laughs best.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

“Bush holdover” is career civil servant hired during Clinton

by Marlo Lewis
May 14, 2009 @ 5:22 pm

Team Obama was embarrassed earlier this week when a leaked interagency memorandum acknowledged that EPA’s proposed finding that greenouse gases endanger public health and welfare could impose severe economic burdens on small business. The memorandum said, in part:

Making the decision to regulate CO2 under the CAA [Clean Air Act] for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities. Should EPA later extend this finding to stationary sources, small businesses and institutions would be subject to costly regulatory programs such as New Source Review.

An unnamed Administration official dismissed the memo on the grounds that it was written by a “Bush holdover.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, takes issue with the Administration’s spin on two counts. First, the “holdover” put-down is an ad hominem argument–as if merely being associated with Bush is sufficient to discredit whatever the memo author has to say.

Second, and more importantly, it is untrue! The so-called Bush holdover, Issa reports, is “a career civil servant who was originally hired during the Clinton Administration and worked at one time for a Democratic Member of Congress. Shawne Carter McGibbon is now Acting-Chief Counsel, keeping the office running until a Chief Counsel for Advocacy is confirmed by the Senate.”

Kudos to Mr. Issa for setting the record straight–and to Ms. McGibbon for speaking truth to power.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Environmentalist Edit-Whores Strike Again

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 06, 2009 @ 2:23 pm

Those of us who post to this blog and others in the global warming debunkification (okay, I made that word up) movement are used to being ignored — or (usually) politely being humored first, and then ignored — but this experience from last week I thought was worth noting in the blogosphere.

Last week the Heartland folks referred a reporter to me from a Midwestern weekly newspaper, who had some questions about a greenhouse gas inventory her county was compiling and where she could expect public policy to go next. I had no idea where her sentiments were on the issue, but I gave her straight feedback based upon examples I’d seen elsewhere. What she did with it after that was up to her, and I did not care much either way what she did, given my past experience with environmentalist journalists.

Turns out she sought to do a balanced article, but her editor would have none of it. I usually like to name names with things like this, but I assume the reporter wants to keep her job so I will refrain. This is what she emailed me:

Paul:
Thank you so much for your responses. I did a story, but my editor removed all references to debate about climate change, global warming or whatever they are calling it now. He didn’t tell me, which is unusual when removing such a huge chunk of a story, but I just discovered it today after it didn’t appear in our print edition.

It is online, but is not as I wrote it. I’m so sorry. I will still try to get both sides of all issues out. That’s all I can do. Thank you, and again, I apologize.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Eco-sailors rescued by oil tanker

by Marlo Lewis
May 06, 2009 @ 3:42 pm

“An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth [England] on a 5,000-mile carbon-emission free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker,” BBC News reports. The crew’s solar and wind powered vessel capsized three times in stormy weather (68 mph winds). So far, at least, nobody has blamed global warming for the bad weather.

The irony of an oil tanker rescuing anti-fossil fuel crusaders was of course not lost on the BBC. The moral of the story should be obvious. Environmentalism is a luxury made possible by the comparative wealth and safety of a civilization powered predominantly by coal, oil, and natural gas. Restricting and, ultimately, prohibiting fossil energy use is a recipe for disaster and death.

So, have any of the eco-sailors had a change of heart or even second thoughts about the alleged evils of fossil fuels? The BBC report does not say, which probably means none did.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

So, Mr. Waxman, how much global warming will your bill avert?

by Marlo Lewis
May 06, 2009 @ 11:23 am

The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade (energy tax) bill aims to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% below by 2030, and 83% below by 2050. The cumulative cost in reduced GDP would likely total trillions of dollars. How much bang would we get for the buck?

Today, on Masterresource.org, climate scientist Chip Knappenberger shows by the numbers that the Waxman-Markey bill “will have virtually no impact on the future course of the earth’s climate.”

To calculate the climatic effects of the bill, Chip uses the MAGICC* climate model developed by the National Center for Climate Research, and assumes a climate sensitivity of 3°C (in other words, a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations above pre-industrial levels is assumed to produce 3°C of warming).

MAGICC reveals that an 83% reduction in U.S. emissions “will only produce a global temperature ’savings’ during the next 50 years of about 0.05ºC.” Translating a bit, the temperature reduction is nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Another Report from the Big Climate Industry

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
April 30, 2009 @ 4:32 pm

The Society of Environmental Journalists inbreeders reported earlier this week about another so-called climate report — “so-called” because it is yet another study that addresses everything except the core issue of whether there is still global warming, and if so, whether or not humans are causing it — released on Monday. This time it’s the Asian Development Bank sounding the alarm in an examination of the risks posed by AGW to five (why only five?) Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. I guess Cambodia, Laos and the others aren’t worth the trouble.

The report was funded by the Government of the United Kingdom (another why?) and the methodology used to conjure up all the devastating effects of AGW on SEA was the same used for the discredited Stern Review, named for alarmist bookseller Nicholas Stern. So it’s not surprising that Stern wrote the foreward for the ADB report:

The science is continuing to develop rapidly and as it does further possible impacts will be revealed and risks re-assessed. Interactions between impacts can multiply their effects. Many of the impacts from climate change are not in traditional economic sectors with the result that valuations of their effect is difficult and many are likely to be missed….It is important that the economic analysis on climate change measures what counts rather than merely counting what can easily be measured.

Translation: We reserve the right to continue to make crap up as we think of it.

The report also got a big push from Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, ADB’s obligatory sustainable development mouthpiece. The VP with the Bond girl moniker and the Judi Dench mug had this to say:

Despite the global and regional economic downturn, the Earth is still warming and sea levels are rising. The world can no longer afford to delay action on climate change, even temporarily. Countries must act decisively. The global economic crisis provides an opportunity for the world, and Southeast Asia, to start the transition toward a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy.

All-in-all another nice fictional addition to the climate alarmism theatrics.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Cooler Heads Digest 1 May 2009

by William Yeatman
May 04, 2009 @ 9:43 am

In the News

The Real Danger of Global Warming
Vaclav Klaus, RealClearWorld.com, 1 May 2009

Obama’s Plan “Necessarily” Skyrockets Energy Bills
Paul Chesser, DC Examiner, 1 May 2009

Back to the Good Old Days
Paul Driessen, GlobalWarming.org, 1 May 2009

CO2 Fantasy
Deroy Murdock, Indianapolis Star, 30 April 2009

Make Believe World of Cap-and-Trade
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 29 April 2009

Al Gore Is Wrong on Arctic Ice
Kenneth P. Green, MasterResource.org, 30 April 2009

A Primer for Deniers
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, 30 April 2009

Chevy Volt Not Ready To Roll
Charles Lane, Washington Post, 29 April 2009

Al Gore’s Morals vs. Your Pocketbook
Morning Bell, Heritage.org, 27 April 2009
News You Can Use

* Sea ice around Antarctica has been increasing at a rate of 100,000 sq km a decade since the 1970s, according to a new study by the British Antarctic Survey, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (reported in The Australian).
* A new Zogby Poll shows that 57% of Americans oppose cap-and-trade schemes.
* Charles River Associates released a study this week estimating that President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme would kill 1.9 million jobs by 2020.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell
Waxman-Markey Update

After cancelling this week’s scheduled subcommittee mark-up, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have spent the week trying to gain enough support to pass their energy rationing bill out of committee. Very few details have emerged from these backroom sessions, and so it is not clear that Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Waxman and Energy and the Environment Subcommittee Chairman Markey have yet made enough concessions to win over Democrats representing districts that produce oil or coal, rely on coal for electricity, or have energy-intensive manufacturing. These Democrats are: Mike Ross (Ark.), Gene Green (Tex.), Charles Melancon (La.), Mike Doyle (Penna.), Rick Boucher (Va.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), John Barrow (Ga.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Jim Matheson (Utah), G. K. Butterfield (NC), Baron Hill (Ind.), and Zack Space (Ohio). Thus whether the committee holds a mark-up next week is still up in the air as I write this.
Highlights from Hearings

In the meantime, I have been thumbing through the transcripts of last week’s three long days of hearings on the Waxman-Markey draft bill. The highlights would fill many pages. Let me just mention a few.

The panel of witnesses representing the U. S. Climate Action Partnership, a big business special interest coalition of companies that wrote the cap-and trade title of the bill, naturally all testified in favor of the Waxman-Markey bill. However, they were asked by Representative Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking Republican on the Committee, whether they would support the cap-and-trade program if all the ration coupons were auctioned rather than given away free to them. No, sorry, they would then have to oppose the bill. From which I conclude that global warming is a crisis as long as you think you can get rich off it.

Former Vice President Al Gore was the star witness of the hearings, but former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stole the show. I am far from being a fan of Gingrich, but he did a great job attacking the premises of the bill. Gingrich was a fill-in witness after Chairman Waxman refused the Republicans’ request to invite Christopher, Viscount Monckton to testify.

Gore’s testimony was much less impressive. He is still making scientific claims that are not supported or have been discredited in the scientific literature. He also claimed that it is possible to remake America’s energy sector even more quickly than the targets in the bill, but doesn’t see that the first obstacle to doing this is the regulatory structure that can delay building new transmission lines, wind farms, etc. for decades. And while the doomsday clock is running, he still wants to think about nuclear power as something we should consider.

In reply to a question from Representative Marsha Blackburn (D-Tenn.), Gore assured the Committee that every penny he had earned from his investments in renewable energy and from his movie and book had been donated to his non-profit group, the Alliance for Climate Protection. He did not mention that his tax deductible donations to the Alliance for Climate Protection are being used to promote policies that would increase the value of his investments. Nor did he promise that all future pennies earned would also be donated to some worthy cause. That’s the real point. The real profits from investments in renewable will come if energy-rationing legislation is enacted. So Al could still be set to make hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions, of dollars for himself and his partners at Generation Investment Management and Kleiner Perkins.
Renewables Can’t Compete

Julie Walsh

The Energy Information Agency sent us their calculations for the levelized costs of different power sources in 2016, minus any incentives, under an adjustment that simulates a $15 per ton CO2 emissions fee. (rounded)

Natural gas advanced combined cycle: 8 ¢/kwh
Conventional coal: 9.3 ¢/kwh
Advanced nuclear: 10.5 ¢/kwh
Biomass: 11.3 ¢/kwh
Wind: 11.6 ¢/kwh
Advanced coal with carbon capture and sequestration: 11.5 ¢/kwh
Offshore wind: 22.5 ¢/kwh
Solar thermal: 25.8 ¢/kwh

Therefore the “rush to gas” fears are justified and renewables would still require massive subsidies.

(Email Julie Walsh at jwalsh@cei.org for EIA’s excel spread sheet calculations and notes. Source: Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook, 2009 DOE/EIA-0383(2009).)
Across the States
EPA Revokes Permit for Navajo Power Plant

Last week the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew an air quality permit for a proposed coal fired power plant in the Four Corners administered by the Navajo Nation. The EPA reasoned that “complete analysis” had not yet been performed when it issued the permit last summer. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley said in a statement the decision was further proof that the U.S. government isn’t “honest and truthful in its dealings with Native America.”
California

On Monday, the California Air Resources Board approved a Low Carbon Fuel Standard that requires the State’s fuel supply to achieve a 10% reduction in “carbon intensity” by 2020. CARB’s Mary Nichols said that the measure will break California’s petroleum habit, but Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Miami Herald that there’s no certainty alternative fuels will be ready to meet the demand.
Maryland

The DC Examiner reports this week that Montgomery County (Maryland) officials want to scale back some of the county’s ambitious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to help bridge a budget gap of more than $550 million.
Around the World
Canadian Emissions Increase

Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions jumped 4% from 2006 to 2007, according to Environment Canada. Since it signed the Kyoto Protocol, Canada’s emissions have increased every year for which there is data available.
Green Jobs for China

Lewis Page of the Register reports that international wind-turbine maker Vestas announced it will lay-off 600 employees in the United Kingdom. The day after that decision, the company announced new investments to expand existing Chinese plants, which likely are powered by coal.
Corrections

The article last week entitled “Arctic Ice Recovers” should have been titled “Arctic Ice Recovering.” Also, the graph that best show the Arctic ice increasing since the low in 2007 referred to (here) is from “The Cryosphere Today,” run by the Polar Research Group in the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Status Report on International Climate Treaty

by William Yeatman
May 01, 2009 @ 2:41 pm

There are only seven months until the global community plans to adopt a successor climate treaty to the failed Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen, but negotiators are far apart on the most important issues-binding emissions cuts and paying for a global green energy revolution. Here’s a quick run down of the stakeholders bargaining positions.

On binding emissions reductions:

* Developing countries refuse to reduce emissions. They want developed countries to commit to 40% cuts by 2020.
* The European Union wants developed countries to commit to 30% cuts by 2020.
* The Obama administration proposes 18% cuts by 2020, but it wants significant participation from rapidly growing developing countries such as India and China.
* In the United States Congress, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) have proposed a draft of a legislation calling for the United States to reduce emissions 20% by 2020, although they are meeting heavy resistance from both within their own party and Republicans.

On financing a global green energy revolution:

* Developing countries demand.5%-2% of developed nations’ aggregate GDP, annually, to facilitate climate change mitigation.
* The European Union believes that developed nations need to raise and distribute $230 billion a year through 2020, but it refuses to discuss burden sharing until the U.S. submits a proposal.
* The Obama administration has yet to address climate change mitigation aid to developing countries.
* The Waxman-Markey draft bill does not address climate aid, but it is highly unlikely that the Congress would agree to pay scores of billions of dollars every year for clean energy in China.

It is my strongest hope that this deadlock persists, so that we all may b

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Not Just Moderates

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 01, 2009 @ 1:15 pm

The Climate Drudge (aka Marc Morano) just sent out this link to a Wall Street Journal blog post which explains how difficult it has been for House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman to buy enough votes to get his global warming legislation out of a key subcommittee. The Journal reporters explain how skeptical moderate Democrats are having qualms about the bill, but then they quote very liberal Rep. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina about the challenges:

“I don’t think the votes are there in the subcommittee,” Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D., N.C.) said in an interview. Mr. Butterfield said he was particularly concerned about the bill’s impact on low-income Americans, adding “What do I tell a single mom making eight dollars an hour?”

Could it be that Butterfield, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is understanding the message that the Congress of Racial Equality’s Roy Innis has been delivering for so long now? If liberals have trouble supporting cap-and-trade, is there any hope for it at all?

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Back to the “Good Old Days”

by Paul Driessen
May 01, 2009 @ 11:18 am



Think back to 1905.

The Wright brothers had just made history. Coal and wood heated homes. Few had telephones or electricity. AC units were handheld fans. Ice blocks cooled ice boxes. New York City collected 900,000 tons of vehicle emissions - horse manure - annually, and dumped it into local rivers. Lung and intestinal diseases were rampant. Life expectancy was 47.

Today, President Obama wants to prevent “runaway global warming,” by slashing US carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory data, this reduction would return the United States to emission levels last seen in those halcyon days of 1905!

But America’s 1905 population was 84 million, versus 308 million today. We didn’t drive or fly, or generate electricity for offices, factories, schools or hospitals. To account for those differences, we’d have to send CO2 emissions back to 1862 levels.

The Civil War was raging. Nine of ten Americans were farmers (versus 2% today). The industrial revolution was in its infancy. Malaria halted construction on the Washington, DC aqueduct. Typhus and cholera killed thousands more every year. Life expectancy was 40 - half of what affordable hydrocarbon, hydroelectric and nuclear power helped make it today.

None of this seems to matter to the Obama Administration or liberal Democrats. The 648-page Waxman-Markey climate bill would compel an 80% CO2 reduction, by imposing punitive cap-and-tax restrictions on virtually every hydrocarbon-using business, motorist and family.

That’s making some legislators nervous, as they ponder the health, economic and employment effects of restricting energy supplies and driving up the cost of everything we eat, drink, make and do - especially in 20 states that get 60-98% of their electricity from coal.

So to prod Congress into action, or achieve the 80% target via regulatory edict, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency has decreed that natural, plant-enhancing, life-sustaining carbon dioxide “endangers human health and welfare.” The authoritarian actions it is contemplating would regulate cars, trains, boats and planes; pave the way for regulating farms and factories, hospitals, schools, malls and apartment buildings, computer servers and lawn mowers; and send energy prices skyrocketing.

It is astonishing how casually activists, bureaucrats, politicians and even some corporate executives advocate arbitrary CO2 reduction targets and timetables - as though they were possible, desirable or necessary.

The targets reflect worst-case scenarios generated by computer models. But the models assume human CO2 now drives climate changes that have been occurring for eons. They ignore many natural forces, and inadequately analyze incomplete data, based on our still limited grasp of complex climate processes.

They cannot accurately replicate last year’s regional climate shifts or predict changes even one year in the future. They ignore Earth’s history of repeated climate changes, and failed to anticipate the slowly declining global temperatures of 1995-2008.

Thousands of climate and other scientist say there is no climate crisis, and CO2 plays little or no substantive role in climate change. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 48% of registered American voters now believe climate change is caused by planetary and other natural forces. Only a third still believe it’s due mostly to humans.

Climate realists also recognize that, even if America eliminated all of its greenhouse gas emissions, increasing Chinese and Indian carbon dioxide emissions would promptly offset our draconian cuts.

This alarms Climate Armageddonites. They fear it’s now or never to wrest control over energy and the economic, manufacturing and transportation activities it fuels. Now or never to profit from cap-and-tax laws, renewable energy mandates, and a forced shift away from hydrocarbons that now provide 85% of US energy.

“Socially responsible” corporate groups like the Carbon Offset Providers Coalition are banking on passage of Waxman-Markey or similar legislation. They want to ensure that any CO2 regime is “rigorous and efficient,” to foster high carbon prices, maximum subsidies and strong profits.

President Obama says cap-and-trade will “raise” $656 billion over the next decade. The National Economic Council and other analysts put the tax bite at $1.3 to $3.0 trillion.

This is not monetary manna. The wealth will be extracted from every hydrocarbon-using business, motorist and family.

The intrusive energy rules and taxes will clobber households, manufacturers, farmers, truckers and airlines. The poorest families will get energy welfare, to offset part of their $500-3,000 increase in annual heating, cooling, transportation and food expenses. Everyone else will have to trim health, vacation, charity, college and retirement budgets to pay for energy.

Every increase in energy prices will result in more businesses laying off workers or closing their doors, more jobs sent overseas, more families forced into welfare, more school districts, hospitals and churches into whirlpools of red ink.

Exactly how will they, your family, your business eliminate 80% of CO2 emissions by 2050? Exactly how will you pay those skyrocketing fuel bills?

The Nature Conservancy predicts that, by 2030, “eco-friendly” wind, solar and biofuel projects will require extra land equivalent to Minnesota, to produce the energy we now get from oil, gas and coal. Interior Secretary Salazar’s proposal to have offshore wind turbines replace gas, coal and nuclear electricity generators would mean 336,000 3.25MW behemoths off our coasts - if they operate 24/7/365. Far more if they don’t.

Where exactly will we site those turbines - and get the billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper and fiberglass it will take to build and install the expensive, unreliable, subsidized monsters?

My grandmother used to say, The only good thing about the “good old days” is that they’re gone.

Few Americans will be enthralled by the prospect of returning to that era. Fewer will relish the hefty price tag - and damage to their freedoms, budgets, jobs and living standards.

The White House, EPA and Congress need a serious reality check.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Ponsel Iphone Paling Memuaskan Penggunanya

Kabar gembira datang bagi Apple. Berkat smartphone produksinya, iPhone, Apple dinobatkan sebagai vendor smartphone yang paling dapat memuaskan penggunanya. Demikian hasil survei terbaru dari lembaga J.D. Power and Associates. Mereka menanyai bagaimana performa handset pada para penggunanya dari soal ketahanan baterai, kemudahan pengoperasian, desain dan juga fitur-fitur di dalamnya. Apple bertengger di posisi teratas dengan skor 791 dari nilai sempurna 1000. LG menguntit ketat di posisi kedua dengan nilai 772, diikuti Samsung dengan nilai 759. Adapun vendor asal Taiwan, HTC berada di posisi keempat diikuti RIM dengan nilai 739. Kabar menyenangkan itu datang 

tepat pada saat Apple sedang merayakan kesuksesan toko aplikasi App Store yang laris manis. Aplikasi yang tersedia untuk iPhone maupun iPod Touch telah di-download melebihi 1 miliar kali. (Sumber: detikinet.com)