In the Pipeline: 1/7/13

The chance to get rich off global warming is slipping away.  Which could explain why Vice President Gore joined up with the royal house of Qatar, so they can hate American domestic energy production together.  Did we mention that Al Jazeera also is backing that lousy propaganda from Matt Damon? WSJ (1/4/13) reports: “The Kyoto Protocol on climate change used to be a big deal. So big that the future of humanity was said to hinge on its implementation. Did you know it expired on New Year’s Day? We’re guessing you didn’t, but don’t worry. It’s no big deal.”

I wonder what this dude has in mind.  I bet it is taxes on carbon.  I personally think we should tax dangerous, regressive, economically destructive, pointless policies. NYTimes (1/5/13) reports: “NO one enjoys paying taxes — and no politician relishes raising them. Yet some taxes actually make us better off, even apart from the revenue they provide for public services… Taxes on activities with harmful side effects are a case in point. Strongly favored even by many conservative Republican economists, these levies are known as Pigovian taxes, after the British economist Arthur C. Pigou, who advocated them in his 1920 book, “The Economics of Welfare.” In today’s deeply polarized political climate, they offer one of the few realistic hopes for progress.”

Good news for Alaska: Unwanted yuppies will continue to be kept at bay. Anchorage Daily News (1/5/13) reports: “The overwhelming majority of Alaska is getting colder and has been since 2000, according to a study by researchers with the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But the authors stop short of saying the lower temperatures contradict that idea that the earth, and Alaska in particular, is warming. Instead, they conclude that the findings show a temporary variation.”

We’d want to ask the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (renamed as Earthworks) whether this also applies to Global Warming research. CBS Pittsburgh (1/6/13) reports: “‘In its inability to find a single company willing to test water quality before and after drilling and fracking, the EPA is being thwarted in perhaps the most important part of its study of fracking’s impacts,’ Earthworks said in a statement… ‘Computer simulations are not enough,’ Alan Septoff, a spokesman for Earthworks, said.”

Let a thousand Bakkens Bloom: Fed Reserve reports Bakken income up 19% while U.S. is flat. INFORUM (1/4/13) reports: “The Bakken oil boom is now five times larger than the area’s 1980s oil boom, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.”

Trick question: What’s the one country in the world that embraces opportunity, investment, and adding tangible value to society? Edmonton Journal (1/1/13) reports: “Alison Redford’s cabinet is expected to decide in January whether the government will spend $10 million to study the idea of building a rail line to ship oilsands products from northern Alberta to a port in Alaska… The money would help pay for a $40-million study that will investigate the feasibility of a proposed 2,400-kilometre rail line to carry landlocked oilsands products from Fort McMurray to Delta Junction, Alaska… From there, Alberta’s oil would flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system to the Valdez Marine Terminal, and on to booming Asian markets.”