In 1920, to protect American shipping from foreign competition, Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, also known as the Jones Act. Section 27 requires that ships carrying goods from one US port to another be built and flagged in the US and owned and crewed mostly by Americans. While they can make sense in terms of national defense if they prevent the country from becoming dependent on hostile foreign nations for commodities and manufactured goods critical for national defense, such … [Read more...]
Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun
Editor's Note: [The politicization and corruption of science is a huge threat to human wellbeing. Real science has been integral to overcoming innumerable threats to health, life, prosperity, and even liberty. Politicized science erodes public confidence in real science. The Cornwall Alliance has been pointing this out particularly as it relates to climate change and energy, but the same is true in other areas, too—particularly, over the last two years, the Covid pandemic and competing views … [Read more...]
Unmasking the Latest Bipartisan (and Dangerous) Climate Bill
It is summer in the United States, which means temperatures are hot and western forests and grasslands are burning—as has been the case as long as people have lived here. In our current age, however, in which there is alleged to be a political “solution” to nearly every problem, politicians believe they can use governmental policies to give us better weather and change the nature of wildfires. So far, Congress, state legislators, and the Biden administration have launched a blizzard of new … [Read more...]
Swiss Scientist: Play My Way or I’ll Take My Ball and Go Home!
That's the gist of what Swiss climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne told CBC News about why she may refuse to participate in any future assessment reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It's not that the reports don't let her say what she wants to say. She's been a lead author about extreme weather in three of the six assessment reports. No, it's that policymakers around the world don't just take her word for it and do what she says must be done. "There is … [Read more...]
Why “Follow the Money” Doesn’t Cut It
Dr. David Kreutzer, an economist formerly with the Heritage Foundation and now with the Institute for Energy Research, was Cornwall Alliance's livestream guest July 27 to discuss why President Joe Biden's "Net Zero by 2050" plan not only won't succeed but can't. (You can watch it on Facebook or YouTube.) When I announced this on Facebook, a friend from back in high school days---a fellow Christian and sincere person---commented, "No, thank you. I prefer to hear and read people with expertise … [Read more...]
Pennsylvania Republican Senators Take a Stand for Constitutional Order Against Green Agenda
Twenty-eight Republican members of the Pennsylvania senate signed a letter April 21 of which Benjamin Franklin would be proud. Protesting Governor Tom Wolf's frequent use of executive orders to bypass the state legislature, which Republicans dominate, and impose his climate-change agenda on an otherwise unwilling state, hey gave him an ultimatum: Stop it, or we'll reject all your nominees to the state Public Utility Commission. We applaud their action and the reasoning on which it stands, … [Read more...]
Indiana Economists Endorse “Carbon Tax”—But Should They?
Recently fifty Indiana economists issued a public letter to their state's legislature endorsing a "carbon tax" as an economically wise way to curb global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The fundamental premise of taxing CO2 emissions is that they cause more harm than good (and thus are what economists call a “negative externality”—a cost of doing business not borne by a firm but foisted off onto others—the typical case with pollution). Economists are right to say that taxing … [Read more...]
Congressional Doctors Warn EPA’s CO2 Rule Threatens Public Health
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims that its new rule restricting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants will improve Americans’ health. Yet carbon dioxide (CO2) isn’t poisonous at levels more than 20 times what they now are—levels we wouldn’t likely reach for a thousand years or more even without restrictions on emissions, and even if we didn’t run out of or find better replacements for fossil fuels first. So why does EPA claim reducing its emissions will improve Americans’ … [Read more...]
Bogus Poll Touts Widespread Support for Obama’s CO2 Cuts
The headline couldn’t have been more celebratory: “A huge majority of Americans support regulating carbon from power plants. And they’re even willing to pay for it.” Uh-huh. Here’s the key question: “What if that significantly lowered greenhouse gases but raised your monthly energy expenses by 20 dollars a month - in that case do you think the government should or should not limit the release of greenhouse gases?” Note that figure: $20/month, equals $240 per year. But the real cost on … [Read more...]
Testimony To the United States Senate Environment & Public Works Committee June 3, 2014
“When scientific views come under political attack, so too does independent thinking and good policy-making” Read Dr. Legates's Full Testimony Here (PDF). Over the years, I have applied for several federal grants. Two in particular, submitted to NASA and the USDA (the latter involved using precipitation estimates by weather radar to enhance agricultural planning which had nothing to do with climate change), were never reviewed. It is not that I have received bad reviews; indeed, I have … [Read more...]
