Get ready. You’re about to meet “the most important figure you’ve never heard of.” SCC. No, not SEC—Securities and Exchange Commission. (And you sports fans thought that was Southeastern Conference!) SCC stands for “social cost of carbon.” Which should prompt you immediately to ask two questions: “What’s that?” and “What’s that?” Okay, that’s one question. But you need to ask it twice. The first time, you want to know what it means. The answer, according to Wikipedia, is (take a … [Read more...]
Beware EPA ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ Models
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could scientifically determine the cumulative costs or benefits that result over the next three hundred years from our choices in the present? It may be nice, but it is impossible. ” “Because [mainstream climate] models produced such wildly different results depending on the projections and assumptions baked in the mathematical cake, economist Robert Pindyck concluded after an extensive review of such models that they are so badly flawed as to make them virtually … [Read more...]
Monckton Writes to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Clean Power Plan
We're delighted that our friend Viscount Christopher Monckton, one of the leading critics of climate alarmism, allowed us to publish this letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, with which we wholeheartedly agree. We encourage citizens to make their own opinions known to Administrator Pruitt. By the way, what comes out of the "smokestacks" in the photo below is not smoke but water vapor (the white condensing steam) and carbon dioxide, not a pollutant but an … [Read more...]
Trump’s Decision to Downplay Climate Change Could Save $Billions
Climate-change hysteria is the primary rationale for switching from abundant, affordable, reliable energy from fossil fuels to diffuse, expensive, unreliable "renewable energy from wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels, etc. It's also a main driver of failure after failure, often wasting millions or even billions in taxpayer dollars. That's one of many reasons to cheer this report from Bloomberg: President Donald Trump is set to sign a sweeping directive to dramatically shrink the role climate … [Read more...]
“Social Cost of Carbon”—Going, Going, Gone?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency forecasts the "social cost of carbon" (SCC) in the year 2020 to run anywhere from $13 to $137 per metric ton. That's EPA's measure of the harm each ton of "carbon" (really carbon dioxide, but who cares with our ill-educated public that doesn't know the difference between an element and a compound---especially when the shorthand serves the purpose of scaring people needlessly?) emitted into the atmosphere. Its estimates are based on a … [Read more...]