In the Pipeline: 7/5/13

You read that right. China burns five times more coal than the United States. Now that we’ve learned about the scope of our government surveillance of us, what, exactly, is our selling point over the Chinese? The Daily Caller (7/2/13) reports: “The climate change policy that President Barack Obama proposed last week panders to environmentalists’ visions of a pollution-free, energy-efficient world, but is so out of touch with the economic and energy realities of today, it’s sure to remain just a dream. Through presidential decree, Obama aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are said to cause global warming, by nearly one-fifth by 2020. His proposal accomplishes this by giving the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate and cap carbon emissions from existing power plants, all without any congressional input. The president’s plan is dependent on the notion that the U.S. will lessen its reliance on coal, which now powers about 40 percent of U.S. electricity.”

McKitrick proposes that we base climate change policy on science, and that people put their money down instead of just babbling. My guess is that he will not get a good tent in the reeducation camp. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (PDF) reports: “The basic mechanism involves building a tax per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the price of all forms of fossil energy (oil, coal and natural gas). CO2 is uniquely suitable for taxing in this way because in almost all cases there are no abatement options: once burned, the entire carbon content of the fuel ends up as CO2 in the air. So if we know how much fuel is used, we know how much tax should be paid. Users of the fuels will then economize by reducing the most carbon-intensive forms of energy consumption. Since purchasers in the market are motivated to save money, any emission reduction option that costs less than the tax that would otherwise be paid will be adopted. The result is that the market will discover all the least-costly ways of reducing CO2 emissions, in the process making use of far more information than would ever have been available to government planners and rule-makers.”

We like Quin Shea a lot. But the court did not compel EPA to do what they are doing. He needs to stop saying that, because it is wrong. The Associated Press (7/1/13) reports: “After several years of taking a beating from the poor economy, new pollution rules and a flood of cheap natural gas, the coal industry was on the rebound this year as mining projects moved forward in the Western U.S. and demand for the fuel began to rise, especially in Asia. But almost overnight, coal is back on the defensive, scrambling to stave off a dark future amid President Barack Obama’s renewed push to rein in climate change. The proposal, with its emphasis on cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants, would put facilities like the 2,100 megawatt Colstrip electricity plant in eastern Montana in regulators’ cross hairs. That has profound spin-off implications for the massive strip mines that dot the surrounding arid landscape of the Powder River Basin and provide the bulk of the nation’s coal.”

Flying planes at buildings? Wonder where they picked up that strategy. Charlotte Business Journal (7/1/13) reports: “Lynn Good, the new chief executive of Duke Energy Corp., got a special greeting from Greenpeace on her first day as CEO Monday. The environmental activist group flew a banner around the Charlotte energy giant’s headquarters in uptown Charlotte with a message for Good. It was a to-do list that read: ‘Duke Energy CEO’s 1st Day: Key to the executive restroom, Quit coal & nukes, Go solar.’ Only the first item on the list had a check mark next to it.”

About the only thing the good doctor forgot to mention is that the entire states that will be impoverished under this global warming plan are currently red and therefore inconsequential to His Majesty. The Washington Post (7/4/13) reports: “But it is something that the very complex global warming models that Obama naively claims represent settled science have trouble explaining. It therefore highlights the president’s presumption in dismissing skeptics as flat-earth know-nothings. On the contrary. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who refuse to acknowledge the problematic nature of contradictory data. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite a recent Alaskan heat wave — a freak event in one place at one time — as presumptive evidence of planetary climate change. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite perennial phenomena such as droughts as cosmic retribution for environmental sinfulness.”

The New Republic. Chris Matthews. The New York Times. Now onto R Street to no doubt help us understand the wisdom of a carbon tax. Sore losers like Inglis, Leftists like this dude; at what point does this become embarrassing for the other side? R Street Institute (7/2/13) reports: “The R Street Institute today announced that author, columnist and policy expert Reihan Salam has joined its team as a senior fellow. In his new role, Salam will undertake a number of research projects for R Street, including forthcoming studies on carbon taxes, nuclear power and congestion pricing and road usage. He also will represent R Street in a variety of media appearances and op-ed writings.”

We know Helen Bentley. We know Frank O’Donnell. We think she could take him in a fight. National Legal and Policy Center (7/3/13) reports: “The latest corporate example of “I’ve had enough” is Carnival Cruise Lines, which announced last week it would end service from the harbors of Baltimore and Norfolk, Va., due to government requirements that its ships burn low-sulfur fuel within 200 nautical miles of the U.S. coast (with even stricter standards coming in 2015). According to reports in the Baltimore Sun and the Virginian-Pilot, Carnival has been trying to gain approval for a plan to install emissions-reducing “scrubbers” on its ships, and also get a waiver from compliance with the standards until its plan could be fully implemented. The cost for the added technology would have been $200 million, but that still hasn’t been a strong enough offer to budge EPA.”