“I remember the importance of toilet paper while being shelled a few times, a couple of times while on the throne. I don’t understand why they can’t do re-cycled AND fluffy. Why are they exclusive?”
One 122 mm mortar round can ruin that beautiful experience on the throne.
That’s from an officer I befriended at Camp Corregidor in Ramadi, Iraq, where it rained shells so often we had to wear body armor at all times outside of fortified buildings. He saw…
Okay, this time they’ve gone too far!
Now, says the Washington Post, environmentalists are trying to wipe out plush toilet paper!
They say that’s because plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made from older trees - though not what’s defined as “old growth” by any means. And older trees, they say, are better for absorbing carbon dioxide and thereby slowing global warming.
(Have you noticed that there’s nothing that can’t be tied into global warming?)
They want us Americans to wipe with the same…
Today’s ClimateWire (subscription required) carries an analysis by reporter Lauren Morello that begins:
Say goodbye to “greenhouse gases.” Say hello to “carbon pollution” and ”heat-trapping gases.”
Morello observes a shift in the vocabulary U.S. government officials are using to talk about global warming — a change much in evidence in President Obama’s climate speech yesterday at the U.N.
Obama officials increasingly avoid the non-pejorative (although somewhat metaphorical) term “greenhouse gas” to describe carbon dioxide and instead refer to “carbon pollution” and “heat-trapping gases.”
Morello quotes NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco’s…
Myron has already pointed out how most of what the President claimed were the threats from global warming are exaggerated. Here’s the data to back that up.
“…[T]he threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.” Reality: global mean temperatures increased slightly from 1977 to 2000. Temperatures have been flat since then.
“Rising sea levels threaten every coastline.” Reality: sea levels have been rising on and off since the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago. …
While this speech is mostly hogwash, I am surprised and delighted to be able to find one thing to praise in it:
Later this week, I will work with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge
This is the right thing to do, for reasons I explained in my recent paper co-written with Sterling Burnett of NCPA (extract follows jump).
While many governments of developed nations argue for a worldwide reduction…
Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent a draft proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that would exempt small emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2) from Clean Air Act (CAA) pre-construction permitting requirement, Greenwire reports.
The proposed rule, as described in Greenwire, is blatantly illegal. It is a tacit admission that the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA set the stage for an economic disaster. It is additional evidence that Mass v. EPA was wrongly decided. It confirms CEI’s…
Today, the World Trade Organization, together with the UN Environment Programme posted a report on trade and climate change that outlines how carbon border taxes may be consistent with WTO rules. It is a very careful discussion of relevant articles, their intent and interpretation, and related WTO cases (though no case has specifically dealt with climate change).
In some cases, the WTO-UNEP discussion reads like “on the one hand, and on the other.” The report is bound to provide environmental groups with…
Word has it that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade/energy tax bill is finally hitting the floor of the House, probably this Friday. CEI is decidedly in the “anti” camp. To that end, we released a statement this morning by Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on the legislation and its potential impacts:
Waxman-Markey is a 1,201-page economic suicide note. Those Members of the House who vote for it are voting for long-term economic decline and for turning the United States into a second-rate…
Obama’s proposed “cap-and-trade” carbon tax on energy use and utility bills is expected to raise up to $2 trillion, more than the $646 billion the Administration earlier estimated. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney explains how this hidden tax works.
(Before his election, Obama explained that electricity bills would “skyrocket” under his Administration, but the press by and large wasn’t interested in reporting it).
The $2 trillion raised by Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme may be dwarfed by the money made, at consumers’ expense, by well-connected…
In today’s Guardian, Juliana Glover reports that carbon permit prices in Europe’s Emission Trading System (ETS) have crashed from €31 last summer to €8 today. This price is too low to create any incentive for covered entities to invest in ‘green’ technology.
This week, host Cord Blomquist and co-host William Yeatman, along with guest commentator Ryan Young (Richard Morrison is off this week) take a whiff of the bank nationalizations floating through the air, and say they stink. Sen. Chris Dodd’s dodgy dealings in real estate come under scrutiny. Rep. John Murtha has a few multi-million dollar skeletons hiding in his own, heavily gilded, closet. Climate czar Carol Browner declares war on the economy. While favoring immigration in general, our hosts question…
Earlier this week, in a letter to Sierra Club climate council David Bookbinder, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the Agency would reconsider, via a notice-and-comment rulemaking, a Bush-EPA memorandum interpreting regulations that determine whether carbon dioxide (CO2) is currently subject to emission controls under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program.
A front-burner issue facing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson is whether to grant a waiver under the Clean Air Act allowing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to implement first-ever greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. Thirteen other states are poised to adopt the CARB program if Jackson grants the waiver. In all, about 40% of the U.S. auto market would come under the CARB rules.
Jackson’s predecessor, Stephen Johnson, rejected CARB’s application in December 2007. His reasons,…
In a letter dated 5 February 2009, 17 state attorneys general (AGs) plus three other non-federal officials urge EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to respond to the Supreme Court case of Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) by issuing a finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to “air pollution” that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare.
To explain why EPA should make an endangerment finding, the AGs quote from EPA’s July 2008 Advanced Notice…
When President Bush leaves office today, will the capital be warmer or colder than when he was sworn in eight years ago?
It’s not scientifically meaningful, but it is interesting.
Bush has been heavily criticized for doing precious little to curb our emissions of carbon dioxide. During his eight years in office, atmospheric CO2 levels climbed by over four percent.
So what did Bush’s dilly-dallying produce in terms of deadly global warming? The temperature at noon in Washington DC will give us one…
Jerry Taylor of Cato has an excellent summary of what the scientific literature tells us about the social cost of carbon emissions, drawing on the comprehensive but sometimes opaque work of Richard Tol. His conclusion:
So what does Tol 2008 tell us about the social cost of carbon emissions (assuming that the underlying science from the IPCC is correct)? Given our skepticism about the underlying logic of discount rates of 1% or less, any number between $3 per ton and $24 per…
Juxtapose this from the Washington Post–
Gore envisions a nationwide “Smart Grid”–a massive underground network of electrical power lines that would be powered by massive solar panel installations in the Southwest, and huge wind turbine installations in the Pacific Northwest. The Smart grid would dole out power and regulate itself using 21 Century computer technology, Gore said. Gore said such a system would cost $600 billion to build, but that it would pay for itself quickly.
With this from E and E–
California’s…
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