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...]
Germany’s Green Energy Fixation Should Teach US a Lesson
Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government vice chancellor and economic minister Robert Habeck, a leading member of his country’s Green Party, has experienced a rude lesson regarding the disastrous consequences of his years of naïve opposition to fossil fuels. After tasking his top officials to assess the energy security implications of Germany’s dependence on Russian supplies in the event of a then-looming Ukraine invasion, their conclusions were desperately dispiriting. Habeck … [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, … [Read more...]
CO2 Enrichment Improves Plant Water Use Efficiency
This article is the third in a series. You can read the first post here. and the second one here. “Gratefully, nature does not have to wait another century or so for the air’s CO2 concentration to double before reaping benefits from enhanced water use efficiency. It has already begun to profit in this regard from the approximate 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution began.” In my last article I wrote about increased plant … [Read more...]
Operation Climate-Change Choke Point
In a 2020 article published in the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Graham Steele described a detailed plan to use federal financial regulatory agency powers to implement a new national industrial policy without legislation. The plan was to use the powers of the financial regulatory agencies to restrict the flow of credit and capital to firms and activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions. The plan uses the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to … [Read more...]
Cancel Mom’s Grocery Bag Misinformation
I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer, and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation. Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with … [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 … [Read more...]
Can Computer Models Predict Climate?
Editor’s note: This article builds on ideas Dr. Essex discussed with Dr. David Legates and me on From the Stacks, our livestream program, on March 15, 2022 (view here). Parts of it address highly technical issues of advanced mathematics, physics, and modeling that many readers will find difficult to grasp. Nonetheless, we encourage a thorough reading. Even without grasping the highly technical points, you’ll find its main points reasonably clear and persuasive and its conclusions both sound … [Read more...]
A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition
I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum. The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy. Mine is one of twenty papers. A range of topics are covered. My article is the least alarmed among them. You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben. Here is the text of my article: Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat, and most recently as ‘code red.’ … [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 … [Read more...]
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