If you haven’t noticed rising prices here in America for the past twelve months, you’re either Rumpelstiltskin or dead. And if you didn’t expect rising prices, either you’ve not been paying attention to American monetary, fiscal, welfare, and pandemic policies or you’ve not understood basic economics.So, May’s year-on-year “inflation” rate was 8.6%, following April’s 8.3%, continuing a rapid rise that started in October. (Why the scare quotes around inflation? Because properly speaking … [Read more...]
Taxing Sheep and Cow, Uh, Burps
Get ready, farmers. The climate catastrophists are after you!New Zealand's Ministry for Environment on June 8 released a draft plan to tax farmers for the methane their sheep and cattle produce---because, of course, that methane causes climate change, aka global warming, and we all know that's an existential threat to humanity.Except that the moderate warming actually to be expected from rising greenhouse gas levels will bring benefits as well as costs, and it's entirely possible that the … [Read more...]
Will SCOTUS Rein in the EPA?
Back in 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act (CAA), and for the next two decades or more actions taken under it significantly improved the quality of America’s air. In 1990 it passed significant amendments to it, and some of these also had salutary effects.But, combined with an increasing tendency to allow administrative agencies, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to impose regulations without a clear statutory basis, and a tendency of courts to defer to agencies’ “expert … [Read more...]
Did Global Warming Cause Chicago Heat Wave Deaths?
Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and only for a couple of days. But the discovery of the bodies of three women inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left the city looking for answers to questions that were supposed to be addressed after a longer and hotter heat wave killed more than 700 people nearly three decades ago.Now, the city — and the country — is facing the reality that because of climate change, deadly heat waves can strike just about anywhere, don't only fall in … [Read more...]
States’ Opposition to Federal Social Cost of Carbon Use Survives Supreme Court Decision
For years the federal government, especially its Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has sought to use “social cost of carbon” (SCC) as justification, at the cost of billions of dollars, for regulations making it more difficult to drill for and use fossil fuels. That practice can continue—for now.On May 26, the Supreme Court declined a request from 11 states to block the Biden Administration from using the estimated SCC in regulatory activities. The states had argued that the modeling to … [Read more...]
Must Fossil Fuel Extraction Be Stopped to Limit Global Warming?
“Fossil Fuel Extraction Must Be Stopped to Limit Global Warming.” That’s the headline of an article at Earth.com, an environmental activist website. It purports to convey the message of a study published May 17, 2022, in Environmental Research Letters, “Existing fossil fuel extraction would warm the world beyond 1.5°C,” though the study makes no such claim.According to the study, the world is already committed, through its 25,000 oil and gas fields and 3,000 coal mines, to … [Read more...]
Unlikely Source Throws Cold Water on Climate Catastrophism
The Biden administration wants America to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve "net-zero" by 2050. Other advanced nations have similar goals. They all need a bucket of cold water in the face.The New York Times Company is as unlikely a source of that icy bucket as you can imagine. Call it Climate Alarmism Central.But last month, it dashed that bucket of cold water in the face of millions of climate alarmists. In New York Times Magazine it published an interview with Vaclav … [Read more...]
Recovering the Moral Foundations of Economics
Editor's note: This piece was originally published by the Acton Institute over a decade ago. Many years later, this piece still provides a poignant reflection on economics, socialism, environmentalism, and Christian ethics. During the summer of 1980, I met weekly for breakfast, prayer, and study with a minister friend of mine. A warm-hearted, intelligent man, Bob Hager kept challenging me to broaden my interest from the biblical studies, theology, and apologetics that were my great loves to … [Read more...]
Claim: Great Barrier Reef Devastated by Manmade Warming
In the last few weeks various media have reported that Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world's largest coral reef system, is experiencing a "sixth mass bleaching" that threatens lasting devastation. NPR, CNN, and The Guardian, with many others, all told essentially the same story.But actual experts on the GBR challenge the narrative.In Quadrant Online marine biologist and reef specialist Leonard Starck writes:Contrary to the incessant bleating of office-based Great Barrier Reef … [Read more...]
Playing Telephone with a Climate Report: Politicians Obscure Science, Media Fall in Line
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its latest big report, this one titled Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (a mere 2,913 pages). Practically nobody will ever read it. (I confess haven't.) Its Technical Summary is just 142 pages. (No, haven't read that yet, either.) Its Summary for Policymakers is a mere 64 pages. (Still nope---though this one I might actually try to read in the next week or so.)Why would I write about a report of … [Read more...]
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