January 2012

Getting it partly right on weather vs. climate

by Michael Fumento on February 19, 2010 · 1 comment

in Global Warming, Odds & Ends

Eugene Robinson in today’s Washington Post protests that global warming skeptics are using the current (though very long) cold snap in the mid-Atlantic region, which encompasses the nation’s capital, to confuse weather – a short-term phenomenon – with climate.

Robinson, who last year won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, correctly notes that, “the Earth is really, really big. It’s so big that it can be cold here and warm elsewhere – and this is the key concept – at the same time. Even if it were unusually cold throughout the continental United States, that still represents less than 2 percent of the Earth’s surface.”

True enough. And he adds:

Those who want to use our harsh winter to ‘disprove’ the theory that the planet’s atmosphere is warming should realize that anecdotal evidence always cuts both ways. Before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, crews were using earth-movers and aircraft to deposit snow on the ski runs – the winter had been unusually warm. Preliminary data from climate scientists indicate that January, in terms of global temperatures, was actually hotter than usual. Revelers participating in Rio de Janeiro’s annual carnival, which ended Tuesday, sweltered in atypical heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees. Fortunately, the custom during carnival is not to wear much in the way of clothing.

Again, true enough. And regrettably I once again missed going to the Rio Carnival, but hope springs eternal.

But here’s what he doesn’t say. His people have long played exactly the same game.

There’s a wonderful website that keep a more or less comprehensive list of all the things that warmists have attributed to “global climate change” – and mind you, the very term “global climate change’ was coined precisely to be able to tie any change, including things associated with cooling – to the effects of greenhouse gases. One glance at the site blows you away. I want you to click on this link right now and not continue with this blog until you have.

No. Stop. You didn’t click on the link. Do it now.

Okay, the point is made, isn’t it? It includes everything from “acne” to “yellow fever” with “short-nosed dogs endangered” in between. And there are lots of instances of weather change.

In fact, time and again cold weather and its fall-out, including blizzards, have been attributed to “global climate change.”

This is from an article of mine that appeared 13 years ago:

But there it was, the cover of the Jan. 22 Newsweek: “Blizzards, floods & hurricanes: Blame global warming.” There also was the New York Times front-page article by William K. Stevens headlined “Blame global warming for the blizzard” and a nationally syndicated article by environmentalist Jessica Matthews that ran under titles such as “Brrr, global warming brings our blizzard.”

Moreover, I note. Moreover, I say for emphasis, while this was a perfect opportunity for Robinson to show he was playing fair, he could have pointed out they’re doing it even now.

Moreover, Robinson could have seen it in his own newspaper from just days ago.

There it was, right in the headline of a column by uber-environmentalist Bill McKibben, “Washington’s Snowstorms, Brought to You by Global Warming.”

Time magazine also argues “climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm.”

And of course I could go on and on, but point made.

If you live in the mid-Atlantic, don’t go out without a coat. But hypocrisy is a mantle never worn well.

We’re not #1 and it’s okay

by Michelle Minton on February 18, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Odds & Ends, Tech & Telecom

Internet access is not a right. It is a privilege; one that we pay for. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, while not explicitly demanding high-speed Internet access for all Americans did tip-toe toward that ledge in recent comments, in which he noted the importance of high-speed broadband Internet in economic development.

Pointing out that the United States ranks far behind several other nations in Internet speeds, Genachowski revealed a major goal outlined in the broadband plan–to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 million households by 2020. He noted that other countries have already benefited economically from national broadband, citing one example in China.

“Look at Shenzhen, China,” he said in his speech. “In the 1980s, it was a fishing center. Today, it is a city of 12 million that produces about 25 percent of the world’s cell phones.”

Sure, America is in a tight spot right now and economically speaking we might be experience less growth than China, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing and anyway do we really want to emulate China? Do we want the government to filter out websites it doesn’t like and throw bloggers in jail for talking about things it doesn’t want us to discuss? Do we want to erode property rights and contract law?

Genachowski seems to believe that Internet access is a root cause of prosperity, employment, and economic growth. While high-speed Internet access certainly improves the efficiency of job searches, information gathering, and advertising, the reason Internet technology has developed so quickly, become ingrained in our society, and dropped precipitously in price is because of competition and the freedom to experiment. Internet technology has become more available and cheaper precisely because it is not free.  The money consumers pour into the latest technological advances drives competition, innovation, and cost cutting. Simply demanding more access to broadband may result in  more folks having the Internet, but it will likely also bring innovation to a crawl or a grinding halt. As I have noted in previous posts the way to increase access to high-speed Internet it not through regulation and government intervention, but rather by protecting the rights of tech companies and allowing them the freedom to develop and market their products as they choose.

picture via China Blawg

How I Was Not Al Gored Into Submission

by Marc Scribner on February 18, 2010 · 3 comments

in Video, Zeitgeist

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbmnODQPFcM 285 234]

Regulation of the Day 115: Pancake Races

by Ryan Young on February 18, 2010

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

Pancake races are a Lenten tradition that date as far back as the 15th century. Contestants navigate a course as quickly as they can while holding a frying pan and flipping a delicious pancake a certain number of times.

The races are most popular in Britain. But other countries hold them, too. For over fifty years, the town of Liberal, Kansas has competed against Olney in England by setting up standardized courses in each town and comparing racing times. The Americans, despite being relatively new to the sport, actually have the all-time edge on the Brits, 33-25.

The secret to winning is to cross the finish line before your opponents do. That usually means running. The problem is that sometimes, running violates British health and safety regulations.

An official warned the racers before the St. Albans pancake race:

“Due to the wet weather conditions and health and safety regulations, in this year’s race, there will be no running allowed. Only walking is permitted. Any team that runs will be disqualified.

“It is a genuine health and safety concern. People fall over in the dry, they will certainly fall over in the wet.”

Three teams defied orders and pursued excellence as fast as they could. They were disqualified.

(Hat tip: Jonathan Moore)

George Will on Sarah Palin and the populist movement

by Michael Fumento on February 18, 2010

in Odds & Ends

Columnist George Will notes that Sarah Palin is “obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012,” both by liberal and conservatives, but because she has stirred the imagination of the populist movement on the right – which in turn stirs reaction on the left.

Yet in observing that the latest poll shows 71 percent of Americans – including 52 percent of Republicans – think she is not qualified to be president, he asks: “Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.”

“This is not her fault,” he says. “She is what she is, and what she is merits no disdain. She is feisty and public-spirited, and millions of people vibrate like tuning forks to her rhetoric. When she was suddenly forced to take a walk on the highest wire in America’s political circus, she showed grit.” But “She also showed that grit is no substitute for seasoning,” and this lady quit her office as governor of a lightly-populated state after only 17 months. She was a mayor of a small town before that.

Will also points out that “full-throated populism has not won a national election in 178 years, since Andrew Jackson was reelected in 1832.” William Jennings Bryan lost three times in a row, Perot never got a single electoral vote. “In 1968, George Wallace, promising to toss the briefcases of pointy-headed intellectuals into the Potomac, won 46 electoral votes with 13.5 percent of the popular vote. He had the populist’s trifecta – a vivid personality, a regional base and a burning issue.”

He concludes, “Populism has had as many incarnations as it has had provocations, but its constant ingredient has been resentment, and hence whininess. Populism does not wax in tranquil times; it is a cathartic response to serious problems. But it always wanes because it never seems serious as a solution.”

Right. Populists are always extremely sure of what they’re against, but that’s not enough. You have to have a very good sense of what you’re for. And being “for” being against something isn’t what I mean. Moreover, we all know about the problem with decisions made in anger.

It seems that Palin’s main attraction to many populists is that the left has tremendous disdain for her. They jostle each other aside in their efforts to save the damsel ostensibly in distress – though between her book, her Fox gig, and $100,000 speaking fees she seems to be doing pretty well for herself. And indeed, it’s precisely because she’s able to take advantage of that distressed damsel persona.

So pour out millions more words in her defense, if you will. But be thinking seriously about who can best lead the government in 2012 and what important issues we could be addressing if those millions of words – and the energy of the populist movement – were directed elsewhere.

“Climate change of pace,” (the confessions of Phil Jones), my Forbes Online piece

by Michael Fumento on February 18, 2010

in Odds & Ends

There have been a lot of well-kept secrets among the global warmists – which is primarily why the so-called “Climategate” stolen e-mails proved such a scandal. They showed that, in addition to squelching dissenters, the warmists were admitting things to each other that they were denying to the public. They felt, as a Jack Nicholson character put it, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But now the truth is coming out. One fact is that there has been no statistically significant warming for quite awhile. The other is that temperatures in the Middle Ages, at the very least in the northern hemisphere, were considerably warmer than they are now. (See inset.)

Conceding both these points in a BBC interview was Professor Phil Jones. He was director of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, where the hacked Internet server released thousands of e-mails and other documents. Read about his shockingly honest admissions – and the ramification of them – in my new Forbes Online piece.

CEI at CPAC this week!

by Christine Hall on February 17, 2010

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Environment, Global Warming, Labor, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere

CEI is co-sponsoring the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, which is expecting to draw a crowd of some 9,000 -10,000 people from around the country.  Personally, I expect a crowd of angry-but-hopeful Americans, disgusted with Washington’s Big Government agenda but planning on real change – this time, for freedom.

CEI has 4 speakers at CPAC this year – on crucial economic reforms, the political threat posed by labor unions, and all the breaking scandals concerning global warming.  You can view the panels on Townhall.com, which is live-streaming the conference events in the main (“Marriott”) ballroom.

We also have a table in the exhibit hall.  So if you’re coming to CPAC, please stop by and say hello!

CPAC

Not-so-Happy Stimulus Anniversary

by Ivan Osorio on February 17, 2010 · 1 comment

in Agenda for Congress, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Labor, Regulation

The Obama administration and its allies are trying their hardest to put a happy face on the first anniversary of the the gargantuan $787-billion stimulus bill — officially named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. President Obama claims that the Act helped “save” 2 million jobs, while Ross Eisenbrey of the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI) argues that the stimulus has worked because jobs are being lost at a slower rate than before the Act was enacted. (It’s worth noting that EPI has a direct line to the administration: Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, was chief economist at EPI before joining the administration.)

If Eisenbrey is trying to lower expectations, he certainly succeeds. However, he doesn’t succeed in proving that the stimulus was a success. First, he provides no hard numbers, only the “[m]onthly change in payroll employment.” Things getting worse at a slower pace doesn’t mean that things are about to get better. Jobs are still being lost. Once you’re a hole, you don’t need to keep digging as fast to go much deeper.

Second, Eisenbrey argues that because the rate of job losses slowed down after the stimulus was enacted, then the to the stimulus should go the credit. Yet coincidence in time doesn’t prove causation. The proposition that the rate slowed down despite the stimulus — and would have turned around even faster without it – is just as valid an assertion.

However, once you get beyond mere assertion, the numbers hardly put the stimulus in a good light. Elizabeth MacDonald, of Fox Business, provides a useful summary of the jobs situation:

* The unemployment rate has increased since the stimulus bill was enacted, by +1.5% to 9.7%, from 8.2% in Feb 2009.

* The number of people who are unemployed increased by 2.1 million, from 12.71 million in February 2009 to 14.8 million in January 2010.

* The number of states/federal districts with an unemployment rate of 10% or higher increased from Feb 7, 2009 to December 17, 2009 (latest data).

* Payroll employment decreased by 3.3 million (132.823 million in Feb 09; 129.527 million in Jan 2010). Private payrolls are at levels not seen since 1999.

* The construction sector lost 810,000 jobs (6,435,000 in Feb 2009/5,625,000 in Jan 2010).

* The manufacturing sector lost 837,000 jobs (12,377,000 in Feb 2009/11,540,000 in Jan 2010).

* Employment in the federal government (excluding the Post Office) increased by 113,200 (2.068 million in Feb 09 / 2.181 million in Jan 2010). The number of federal, state and local employees is now about twice the number in US manufacturing jobs.

* Most jobs supported by the stimulus so far are public employees.

Even worse, as Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center points out, “unemployment in the government sector accounted for 5.9% of the increase in the economy’s total unemployment which has occurred in the past year.  In contrast, job losses in the non-agricultural private sector have accounted for 81.3% of the total increase in unemployment.”

With more union members now working for government bodies than for private businesses, it’s no wonder organized labor’s allies are so intent on defending the stimulus, while the rest of us pay the tab.

For more on public sector unions, see here and here.

For how to deregulate to stimulate, see here.

No Fault Failure

by Michelle Minton on February 17, 2010

in Insurance

On Monday, the RAND Corporation released a comprehensive overview of the no-fault insurance system and documented how the one-time darling of insurance systems has fallen so far out of favor, simply because it failed to do what it set out to accomplish: higher availability of insurance with lower premium costs. The study, “The U.S. Experience with No-Fault Automobile Insurance: A Retrospective,” can be read in full at the RAND website.

The idea behind a no fault insurance scheme is that if you are in a car accident with another motorist, both of your insurance companies will pay out to their policy holders, regardless of who was at fault for the accident. The hope was that this would allow people immediate access to their insurance dollars without the months or years of costly legal wrangling that occurs in tort-based insurance states. No fault, however, limits an insurers ability to determine who was at fault, recoup loses from the guilty party, and makes determining the risk of individual policy holders very difficult (even if an insurer can approximate the likelihood of his insured causing an accident how are they supposed to gauge the riskiness of all the other drivers on the road that they’ll end up paying for?).

In the 1970s, many policymakers and analysts believed that no-fault automobile insurance was a superior innovation that would displace conventional, tort-based automobile insurance policies. Today, however, no-fault has lost much of its popularity among insurers and consumer groups, according to the report…

Policymakers believed no-fault insurance would minimize litigation and administrative costs, more fairly compensate victims of automobile accidents and be less expensive than tort-based insurance. In practice, however, premium cost reductions never materialized, in large part because of increased medical costs.

Injury costs under no-fault were only 12 percent higher in 1987 relative to tort-based insurance, but by 2004 costs were 73 percent more expensive under no-fault plans. In addition, those states that restricted lawsuits against other drivers actually had higher claim costs than states that permitted lawsuits.

Anderson said he and his colleagues believe medical costs increased largely because consumers who have no fault policies tend to use more specialized types of medical treatment and because medical costs may be more likely to be covered by auto insurance rather than medical insurance in no-fault states. There also is evidence of greater medical cost inflation in no-fault states.

While the study does call for more research before concluding why medical costs seem to have skyrocketed under the no-fault system, it is clear that forcing insurance companies and consumers into a one-size fits all policy that forces certain coverage and prevents legal recourse has not resulted in cost savings, but rather in unintended consequences.

picture via Autoinsuranceplans.com

Veterinarians in OK aren’t horsing around

by Michelle Minton on February 17, 2010

in Odds & Ends

Vets mean serious business when it comes to protecting their industry from competition in Oklahoma. Similar to other states, OK vets are taking steps to prevent unlicensed professionals from honing in on their customer base. Equine dentists, also called “teeth floaters” are specially trained, but unlicensed professionals that care for the oral hygiene of horses.Veterinarians are seeking to make it a criminal offense for these floaters to practice without the supervision of a licensed vet. But equine dentists, enthusiasts and other professionals in the horse maintenance business (such as those who shoe or massage horses) are fighting back.

“We think your animals or horses are your property, and you have the right to choose who works on them,” Rep. Don Armes told them after they jammed into a committee room. “These are not people, these are horses. There’s a difference…Rural America is standing up and saying, ‘That’s enough,”

Veterinarians wrapped there pursuit of protectionist policy under the guise of protecting animal welfare. However, putting additional strains, financial or otherwise on equine care-givers will reduce the number of professionals in the business and raise the costs. The end result will be fewer professionals, higher prices, and more horses going without the care they need to stay healthy and comfortable. If vets truly cared about the well being of horses they would stay out of the way of this burgeoning market.


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