November 2014 Climate Change Summary Report

“Google Scientists Admit Renewable Energy Can’t Work”

November 25, 2014: Investor’s Business Daily reports: “Google is literally and figuratively pulling the plug on its investment in renewable energy because the technology doesn’t work. Will its flop persuade the feds to stop dumping billions down this rat hole? Back in 2007 Google commanded star-spangled headlines with its new high-tech venture to go all in on the next big thing in technology: green renewable energy. The tech giant was saluted as a good corporate citizen for its initiative to help combat global warming. In launching the project, company executives boasted they would prove that wind and solar power were not just good for the environment, but that solar energy could be produced profitably on a mass scale to replace dirty coal and even natural gas. Its ‘green energy czar,’ Bill Weihl, boasted: ‘It is even odds, more or less’ that within ‘three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there.’ Well, today those power plants don’t exist, and Weihl is gone from Google.”

“Should Endowments Divest Their Holdings in Fossil Fuels?”

November 25, 2014: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Dr. Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, states: “College and university endowments have roughly $22 billion, or 5% of their assets, invested in energy and natural resources, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Traditional fossil-fuel investments account for a big chunk of those energy bets, which has sparked a showdown between student activists who say it is morally wrong to support an industry contributing to global climate change, and colleges and universities under pressure to raise funds for financial aid and facilities. The activists have had some success: Stanford University, one of richest schools in America, vowed last May to sell off the coal stocks in its portfolio.”

“GOP wants more electric reliability assurances for climate rule”

November 25, 2014: The Hill reports: “Republican lawmakers are calling on energy regulators to get more involved with the Obama administration’s climate rule for power plants. Top energy legislators in the House and Senate said they’re concerned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hasn’t done enough to protect electricity reliability in the proposed rule. The members of Congress want the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to convene a ‘technical conference’ with FERC, state representatives and stakeholders to examine reliability issues in the rule, which aims to cut carbon pollution from the power sector by 30 percent. ‘EPA lacks the mission and the expertise to determine what is necessary to maintain the reliability of the nation’s electric grid,’ they wrote.”

“The climate pact swindle”

November 24, 2014: A column in The Washington Post states: “Historic. Such is the ubiquitous description of the climate agreement recently announced in Beijing between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in which China promised for the first time to cap carbon emissions. If this were a real breakthrough, I’d be an enthusiastic supporter. I have long advocated for a tangible global agreement to curb carbon. I do remain skeptical about the arrogant, ignorant claim that climate science is ‘settled,’ that it can predict with accuracy future ‘global warming’ effects and that therefore we must cut emissions radically, immediately and unilaterally if necessary, even at potentially ruinous economic and social cost.”

“EDITORIAL: The snows of global warming”

November 24, 2014: An editorial in The Washington Times states: “Pity the plight of upstate New Yorkers, buried under six feet of snow. The folks who dwell in the lee of the Great Lakes are accustomed to deep drifts of white magic in winter, but a winter wonderland doesn’t look so magical when the solstice is still a month away. November is not supposed to behave like January. Some of the global warming ‘experts’ attribute the cause of the early snow to ‘global warming.’ The fanciful explanation goes like this: Warming global temperatures are heating the waters of Lake Erie, preventing the formation of ice. Open water produces increased rates of evaporation and greater cloud formation. Since what goes up must come down, moisture-laden clouds and frigid air flowing south from the North Pole have teamed up to dump snow measured with yardsticks on nearby Buffalo.”

“Why One Democrat Is So Over Obama’s Climate Regulations”

November 20, 2014: National Journal reports: “Sheldon Whitehouse has given 79 Senate floor speeches about the dangers of climate change, and he’s among the Senate’s strongest supporters of the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency cracking down on carbon pollution. But in his 80th floor speech on climate Tuesday, the Rhode Island Democrat said he had a better idea: A per-ton fee on large carbon polluters, he said, would be ‘much more efficient and predictable than complex regulations,’ while also raising revenue that could be returned to taxpayers. ‘A well-designed carbon fee would also open a conversation about whether carbon regulations are still needed,’ Whitehouse said. Along with Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz, Whitehouse on Tuesday introduced a bill that would impose a per-ton fee on carbon for large polluters, which he says could raise as much as $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years. In line with the Obama administration’s estimate of the ‘social cost of carbon,’ the fee would start at $42 a ton with an inflation-adjusted 2 percent increase a year.”

“What the mainstream media won’t tell you about global warming”

November 18, 2014: Hot Air reports: “Between the recent “deal” with China, reports of Obama taking climate action via executive fiat, and the debate over keystone, global warming has been over the mainstream media recently. But instead of debating whether or not the global warming hypotheses is a valid threat to the Earth, the media starts with the premise that the theory is real and anybody who contests global warming is the equivalent of people who don’t believe the holocaust actually happened, they are called deniers. The ‘LA Times’ refuses to print letters that disagree with global warming, CNN openly mocks them on air, the NY Times ran a cartoon suggesting climate change skeptics should be stabbed to death, and MSNBC and CBS only interview climate change believers on their programs. The fact that the liberal skewed media refuses to look at both sides of the climate argument should be evidence enough that they realize global warming theory is flawed. But as one who likes to use facts, below are twelve facts the mainstream media isn’t telling you about climate change. They may not make one believe that global warming is a fraud, but they should at least destroy the argument that climate change is settled science.”

“Are electric cars greener? Depends on where you live”

November 18, 2014: An op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Joshua Graff Zivin, professor in the Economics Department and School of International Relations at UC San Diego, Matthew Kotchen, professor of economics at Yale University, and Erin Mansur, professor at the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth, states: “Long thought a thing of the future, electric cars are becoming mainstream. Sales in the United States of plug-in, electric vehicles nearly doubled last year. Credible forecasts see the number rising within a decade to half a million vehicles per year, which would easily exceed sales of the Toyota Camry today. Although the technology for electric cars is improving quickly, the industry still depends heavily on public policy — such as the $7,500 subsidy that the federal government gives everyone who buys one. The rationale for such aggressive support is, in part, rooted in the idea that these cars cause less pollution. Indeed, conspicuously “green” consumers dominate sales of electric vehicles, just as they did initially for hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. But whether electric cars are actually greener depends on where the electricity comes from. Our research, along with other studies, finds that electric cars are not necessarily the environmentally friendly choice when it comes to the emissions of carbon dioxide — the pollutant of greatest concern for climate change.”

“Obama, in latest climate move, pledges $3 billion for global fund”

November 17, 2014: Reuters reports: “President Barack Obama on Friday pledged a $3 billion U.S. contribution to an international fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, putting the issue front and center of the G20 Leaders Summit in Australia. The large size of the contribution took climate policy watchers by surprise and doubles what other countries had previously pledged ahead of a Nov. 20 deadline. It would be the second major move on climate change taken by Obama after big Democratic losses in last week’s midterm elections. ‘Along with other nations that have pledged support, we’ll help vulnerable communities with early-warning systems, stronger defenses against storm surges, and climate-resilient infrastructure,’ Obama said in remarks ahead of the official opening of the G20 summit.”

“Climate change self-delusion”

November 17, 2014: An op-ed in The Washington Times by Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, states: “That sound you’re hearing from across the Pacific is the Chinese rulers and Beijing laughing at us. President Obama and the ‘green’ lobby actually think China is going to honor the new U.S.-China climate-change agreement that pushes both nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions over the next 15 years. China agreed to a ‘target’ of deriving 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable resources ‘around’ 2030. In exchange, Mr. Obama agreed that American families and businesses will aim to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels. This is not a planet-saving climate-change pact. Rather this plan represents unilateral economic disarmament by the United States as Beijing continues its quest to replace America as the globe’s economic superpower. Raising China’s energy prices by transitioning to highly inefficient forms of electricity production conflicts with Beijing’s strategic mission of economic pre-eminence, and adherence to the agreement is doubly unlikely to happen at a time when the Chinese economy has shown signs of slowing down.”

“The U.S.-China climate change deal is terrible; fortunately, it doesn’t matter”

November 14, 2014: A column in The Washington Times by David Harsanyi, states: “At a Beijing news conference, President Barack Obama called a new China-United States climate deal a ‘historic agreement.’ Grist assures us that the ‘new U.S.-China climate deal is a game changer.’ Bloomberg Businessweek concurred, explaining ‘why the U.S.-China emissions pact could be a climate change breakthrough.’ Vox took it even further and declared, ‘Obama’s climate deal proves China is the biggest foreign policy success of his presidency.’ (Which may be true. And sad.) The rest of the media, unsurprisingly, offered comparable takes on the deal. I guess that when you’re on the lookout for good news, any morsel will do. But there are two problems with treating the deal as big news. 1) We’re not really doing anything we weren’t going to do anyway. 2) Neither is China.”

“GOP: Climate deal is ‘job-crushing’”

November 13, 2014: The Hill reports: “Republican lawmakers on Wednesday lambasted President Obama’s climate deal with China, calling it the kind of policy move that voters rejected at the ballot box last week. The surprise pact announced late Tuesday sets a new emissions-cutting goal for the United States while letting China’s pollution grow for 16 years. While liberals hailed the pact as a step forward in fighting climate change, Republicans called it a raw deal that will lead to more burdensome regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. Coming a week after historic election losses for Democrats, Republicans said they were astonished Obama would commit the United States to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025. ‘This announcement is yet another sign that the president intends to double down on his job-crushing policies no matter how devastating the impact for America’s heartland and the country as a whole,’ Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.” E&E News also reports.

“A Game-Changing Climate Agreement”

November 13, 2014: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Fred Krupp Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, states: “When the U.S. and China announced their climate agreement Wednesday, I thought of Sen. John Warner. The former five-term Republican used to warn his colleagues that if America did not lead on climate change, China would “hide behind our skirts of inaction” and avoid making any emissions reductions. Now that the two countries have set new goals to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, the argument that the U.S. can’t act because China won’t act has finally begun to fade. A very understandable anxiety—that America can’t cut carbon emissions while our biggest competitor keeps burning dirty energy with no end in sight—can now be put to rest. China is already doing a great deal to boost clean energy, but went much further in this agreement. For the first time China pledged to slow and stop rising greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 or earlier, while increasing non-fossil-fuel generation to at least one-fifth of its total energy mix. The U.S. committed to cutting its own emissions, by 2025, to 26%-to-28% below 2005 levels, up from a current 2020 target of 17% below 2005. Meeting these commitments will require both countries to double down on emissions reductions.”

“Green Leap Forward”

November 13, 2014: An editorial in The Wall Street Journal states: “The climate-change campaign against fossil fuels has been having a hard time with democracy. Voters in the U.S. support fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline, Australia repealed its carbon tax, and frustration with green energy costs is rising across Europe. So perhaps it’s not surprising that President Obama has turned to a dictatorship for help with his anti-carbon ambitions. In that sense, the emissions accord sealed Tuesday night between the U.S. and China is a perfect reflection of the mindset of Western climate-change activists. Cheap and abundant energy is popular among Americans because it raises living standards and helps the economy grow. The romance of the fresh princelings of Beijing is that they needn’t abide such barriers to enlightened governance as elections, a free press, transparency, the rule of law and two political parties. They can simply order economic transformation in the next five-year plan, and censor any dissenters as Al Gore wants to do in the U.S. Thus in China Mr. Obama has found the ideal climate-change partner: A technocratic elite that can instruct the bourgeoisie how they must light their homes and commute to work.”

“Election Puts Obama’s Climate Pledge at Risk on Eve of Summit”

November 10, 2014: Bloomberg reports: “President Barack Obama’s pledge to lead a global effort raising $100 billion a year to help poor nations combat climate change may be an early casualty of the Republican takeover of Congress. Lawmakers set to gain roles in setting policy, such as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, have questioned spending U.S. dollars on the effort, a linchpin of efforts to win a global pact fight global warming. Inhofe, who has decried climate-change science and is the probable next chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has said the funding is a misguided foreign-aid effort. ‘This is essentially a proposal that has a double bulls-eye on its back for conservatives,’ said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. ‘It combines climate change and foreign aid.’”

“TOM HARRIS: Unquestioningly one-sided climate-change coverage”

November 10, 2014: An op-ed in The Washington Times by Tom Harris, executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition, states: “Imagine that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held a news conference to announce that the Islamic State does not threaten the Western world. ‘All we need do is see the world through their eyes, and we will all get along fine,’ Mr. Ban might say to the assembled reporters. Media representatives would demand to know if the U.N. chief had lost his mind. Their reports on Mr. Ban’s remarks would be scathing. In other words, reporters would act like professional journalists, skeptical inquirers who assess the authenticity of what they are told by authorities. However, when it comes to covering climate change, even the toughest reporters usually become milquetoast, mere repeaters of political correctness akin to writers for China’s official government newspaper, People’s Daily.”

“United Republican Congress will pose challenges to EPA’s climate rule”

November 6, 2014: reports: “The Senate’s surge into Republican hands yesterday ends an eight-year hold on power in which Democrats made failing attempts to slash carbon emissions amid sharp swings in the public’s mood on climate change and growing damage from natural disasters. Seats in key states like Colorado and Iowa turned to GOP candidates who at times campaigned against the expansion of environmental protections under President Obama. The conservative wave dismantles a Democratic shield that until now had protected U.S. EPA’s efforts to complete its climate rules from Republican attacks as the Obama era ticks toward its end in 2016. Now it’s likely that President Obama’s final years in office will be spent in part defending his plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions at power plants by one-third while addressing Republican priorities on conventional energy, like construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, in a legislature united under the GOP banner.”

“GOP rep: UN climate report ‘nothing new’”

November 3, 2014: The Hill reports: “The chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee said on Sunday that a United Nations report that said the earth is heading toward ‘severe, pervasive, and irreversible’ climate change impacts is ‘nothing new.’ Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement that he appreciates efforts ‘to better understand the complex science of our ever-changing planet,’ but adds that the new report ‘says nothing new.’ ‘Similar to previous reports, the latest findings appear more political than scientific,’ he said. ‘People are tired of the re-packaged rhetoric. It’s time to stop fear mongering and focus on an honest dialogue about real options.’ Smith said it appears that the U.N. is ‘once more attempting to provide cover for costly new regulations and energy rationing.’ ‘Yet the EPA has admitted that electricity regulations will have no discernible impact on the global temperature,’ he added. ‘America cannot afford to drive its economy over a cliff with the hopes that the rest of the world will make the same mistake.’”