I woke up this morning and learned that the United Nations has gone full existential, and African countries should be deeply offended. I wrote an piece that I’ll share with you called Western Arrogance, but even I didn’t appreciate just how arrogant the west truly is. This is disgusting and wrong. To use imagery of Africans in poverty to then suggest that signing up for climate goals will better their lives is nothing short of Malthusian. As Dr. Scott Tinker teaches, energy doesn’t end … [Read more...]
Why “Green Energy” Isn’t “Clean Energy”—or a Good Substitute for Fossil Fuels
Remember President Obama’s “Clean Power Plan”? It aimed to reduce global warming (aka climate change) by cutting American emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generation. It never got very far, and the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) killed it. But now President Biden has his own version. He announced his “Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard” in March. The Washington Post reported it would “turbocharge the country’s transition from fossil … [Read more...]
An Open Letter to John Kerry from People Living in Energy Poverty
Dear Mr. Kerry, I write to you from India, a country you visited recently. Before I share my thoughts about some of your policy recommendations to my nation, I would like to mention a small note: When you ran for President in 2004, your pictures appeared in the local newspapers in India. Sitting in a remote, underdeveloped part of southern India, as a young high school student I wanted you to win that year. You did not, but I was hopeful that you would make it big in politics, and you did! … [Read more...]
Why Did Some U.S. Firms Support Paris Agreement?
Since well before former President Barack Obama signed onto it as an executive agreement (because he knew the Senate wouldn’t ratify it), a number of large American corporations have supported the Paris climate accord. As the time neared when President Donald Trump would announce whether he would keep his campaign promise to withdraw from it, some signed an open letter advising him not to. Many corporations are household names---Adobe, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Facebook, Gap, … [Read more...]
Snarky—But Right
Okay, so most of the time here at the Cornwall Alliance we try to keep our language entirely civil, to avoid both formal and informal fallacies, and just stick to true premises and valid inferences to support our conclusions. Rational, yes. Entertaining? Well, not always. And in today's America, lots of people---at least if their conduct reveals anything about their values---value entertainment a good deal more than reason. So for their enjoyment---and for the enjoyment of those who really do … [Read more...]
DiCaprio’s Titanic Failure: Did “Before the Flood” Sink on Maiden Voyage?
Early in Leonardo DiCaprio’s Before the Flood, which aired Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel, we see a clip of DiCaprio speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, saying, “I stand before you not as an expert.” That’s the most credible line in the movie. And the least credible may be one that follows almost immediately: “I want to do everything I can to learn more about this issue.” If he’d really meant that, he might have gone to the trouble to speak to some of the … [Read more...]
John Kerry, Refrigerants, Global Warming, and Isis—What Did He Say, and Is It True?
Various news sources had a heyday when Secretary of State John Kerry made comments July 22 about HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), the chemicals used in many air conditioners and refrigerators around the world, calling them a major risk because they promote global warming. Conservative media tended to trumpet the news as one more instance of a patently absurd statement by the Secretary of State. Fox News headlined its story, "Kerry: Air conditioners as big a threat as ISIS." Washington Examiner's … [Read more...]
