Tag: climate change

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Historic Paris Pact?

climate change, global warming, Paris, accord, Common Sense

The climate change pact just completed at the United Nations conference in Paris is, the Washington Post informs us, “historic.”

The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and just about every other paper uses that very word in their headlines, too.

“The 12th of December, 2015, will remain a great date for the planet,” declared French President Francois Hollande, dubbing it “the most beautiful and the most peaceful revolution that has just been accomplished.”

“History will remember this day,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predicted. President Obama called it a “turning point for the world.”

Chris Mooney, in a deeper analysis for the Washington Post, agreed that all the hoopla was “more than warranted.”

But Mooney also acknowledged that, “this document, by its very nature, depends on . . . Countries, companies and individuals all across the planet [doing] the right things — and very hard things, at that.”

How hard?

Essentially ending any emission of greenhouse gases in the next half-century.

“Achieving such a reduction in emissions would involve a complete transformation of how people get energy,” the New York Times reported, “and many activists worry that despite the pledges, countries are not ready to make such profound, costly changes.”

As the negotiator for the Federated States of Micronesia put it: “We’ve agreed to what we ought to be doing, but no one yet has agreed to go do it. It’s a whole lot of pomp, given the circumstances.”

“What’s more,” adds Mooney, “even if everyone plays by the rules, the standards and goals set out by the Paris agreement may not be enough to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.”

Historic? History will determine that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture nannyism too much government

A Handle on Global Warming?

Global Warming, Vancouver, gas, sticker, climate change, common sense

Folks in government are prone to overstepping their bounds.

Take, for example, the North Vancouver, British Columbia, City Council, which has instituted a mandatory sticker program for gas pumps. Starting in 2016, public service announcements will appear on North Vancouver gas pump nozzle handles.

What for?

To warn us of the danger of global warming.

Though the city government hasn’t accepted any particular message, Autoblog reports that the policy is clear: “The idea behind the warnings isn’t to shame people for filling up an internal combustion engine but instead to suggest that there could be more eco-friendly alternatives.”

Autoblog calls this new move a “small step to help fight the planet’s rising temperatures,” and that North Vancouver “will likely be the first city in the world” to enact such a mandate.

I am sure city pols are proud of themselves.

The ordinance was pushed by a not-for-profit Canadian group called Our Horizon. The goal? Make a “positive impact on the environment” with this “relatively low cost but highly visible strategy.”

The official estimate on costs? Between C$3,000 and C$5,000. Costs to businesses? “Gas station owners must display [the stickers] as a condition of their business license.”

Meanwhile, the unsettled science of climate change teeters ahead, as The Rebel Media reports: increased carbon dioxide may not cause extra warming (chlorofluorocarbons do that), but does induce greening, helping plant life to flourish.

When the truth finally emerges, out of the fog blown over the issues by groupthink, the findings of legitimate science probably won’t fit on a sticker.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility

Climate Changelings

Paris, climate change, global warming, natural gas, fracking, Common Sense, illustration

Worried that the world is going to sacrifice progress for the mess of pottage that is “global climate change”?

Don’t. Years ago, economists specializing in game theory recognized that the governments of the world would be extremely unlikely to agree to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The incentives are all wrong for that.

Last month, the great debunker of junk climate science, Patrick Michaels, reporting on the recent Paris talks, concurred. The international agreement going forward is so worded as to be “free to be meaningless.” Countries can claim to be “doing something,” but effectively accomplish nothing. Which allows “the world’s largest emitter (China) and the third-largest one (India)” to balk.

But the ole USA? It is doing something . . .

and it’s going to cost. Here’s one reason: Under Obama’s Clean Power Plan, substitution of natural gas for coal in electrical generation isn’t going to increase, even though it produces only half the carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity as coal. Instead, his EPA says power companies have to substitute unreliable, expensive “renewables,” mainly solar energy and wind. These are mighty expensive compared with new natural-gas power. And even the Clean Power Plan won’t meet our Paris target.

Obviously, what we have to worry about are our martyrdom-prone environmental zealots and their power-hungry (political power-hungry) friends ensconced in government.

They just can’t leave well enough alone, for, as Michaels notes, even CO2 emissions improve with industrial progress — when markets are free and property rights established.

But anti-capitalists in and out of government don’t want improvements to come naturally. Apparently, they would rather make things worse even by their own standards than let markets work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies

The Sanders/Obama/Nye Conjecture

climate change, global warming, drought, terrorism, Common Sense

When some of America’s most illustrious public figures — Senator Bernie Sanders, President Barack Obama, and Bill Nye the Science Guy — proclaim global climate change as the “obvious” cause of the rise of ISIS (and recent rounds of terrorism), it’s time to consider:

Is it climate change that is responsible for the recent rash of mass shootings in the U.S., most recently in San Bernardino?

There is a drought in California — a water shortage, anyway.

But that is caused more by overuse and underpricing of water resources — itself the result of public, not private, water resource management — than climate change.

Isn’t it more likely that people on the margin of stability — call them “crazy” or just evil — take cues from other shooters in the news, draw inspiration and then draw guns?

And fire.

America’s non-Muslim, home-grown mass murderers don’t seem to be making a clear point. Syrian refugee and European ISIS-sympathizing Muslim radicals do seem to be making a point — but one quite tangential to Bill Nye’s nifty causal chain: man-made global warming leads to droughts; farmers leave the country for the city; over-strapped cities lack water and jobs; frustrated male (and female) refugees go postal.

Hey Bill, don’t war and drone strikes, not to mention tyranny, also cause instability?

But then, so would cutting back on fossil fuels: the whole mid-east region runs on fuel sold to the West. If we fight ISIS by combatting CO2 emissions, and if the Sanders/Obama/Nye Theory is correct, we’ll just get more ISIS.

Copy-cattery and ideology explain this evil better. Not climate change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture

Caliph/f or Nyet

drought, war, Syria, Global Warming, California, illustration

We live in a time when intelligent people expend vital brain power concocting explanations for war that weigh drought as a more significant cause than . . . previous tyranny and warfare.

Yes, the President’s friends and acolytes defend the notion, in all seriousness, that it is unregulated capitalism leading to global warming and Levantine droughts that made Syrians all unruly. This explains everything!

Just blame Islamic State violence on the weather and not on . . . the murderous dictator willing to kill masses of his own people, the intoxicating ideology of jihad, and (definitely not!) on Barack Obama’s Mideast policies.

I emphasized the Syrian dictator’s acts last Sunday. But surely American foreign policy — going back to Bush, at least — destabilized the region, and constitutes a major cause of the violence.

A far greater cause than our car-driving addiction! And coal!

And flatulent cows . . .

Blame shifting is not just a foreign policy vice, though. My Townhall column began not with the nascent Caliphate’s droughts, but California’s. And there’s more than just a few syllables of pronunciation similarity. People are assigning the wrong causes in both regions.

When California’s government-run water system subsidizes almond growing in a near desert, of course there is going to be waste. And yet politicians focus on home water use, scolding folks for taking long showers.

Yet, who sets the price of the water homeowners buy? Who, then, is responsible for the incentives to which consumers react?

The State of California. Suffering no drought of disastrous dictates by politicians in over their heads.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense crime and punishment First Amendment rights folly ideological culture meme Popular

Scientists for Censorship

Climate Crime, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, censorship, global warming

“You have signed the death warrant for science,” scientist Peter Webster wrote to a colleague, recently.

The recipient of this charge had signed onto an entreaty to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren — along with 19 fellow climate scientists. They asked for an investigation into companies and organizations that publicly express doubt about predictions of impending catastrophic man-made global warming. Specifically, they urge the administration to pursue this line of assault using the oft-abused RICO statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.

Yes, the scientists are calling for harassment of dissenters and straight-out censorship.

Ronald Bailey, over at Reason, calls this a “new low in politicizing science.” Climatologist Judith Curry, who quoted Webster’s above judgment as an epigraph to her post on the subject, colorfully characterized her reaction: “When I first spotted this, I rolled my eyes — another day, more insane U.S. climate politics.”

The 20 alarmists, for their part, draw a parallel to the tobacco RICO investigations that were so influential a few decades ago. But that original case was badly decided. Moreover, RICO laws are themselves an affront.

The anthropogenic global warming catastrophists have previously undermined their case — lies, conspiracies to hide data, misleading use of computer models, and a relentless campaign to turn scientific inquiry into “settled science” will do that. But now, the grotesque spectacle of scientists demanding that the full weight and force of coercive government come down on their “opponents” completely destroys any remaining shred of credibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Climate Crime, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, censorship, global warming