Source:  SPPI Blog

by Paul Driessen

Unprecedented! As bills to extend seemingly perpetual wind energy subsidies were again introduced by industry lobbyists late last year, taxpayers finally decided they’d had enough.

Informed and inspired by a loose but growing national coalition of groups opposed to more giveaways with no scientifically proven net benefits, thousands of citizens called their senators and representatives – and rounded up enough Nay votes to run four different bills aground. For once, democracy worked.

A shocked American Wind Energy Association and its allies began even more aggressive recruiting of well-connected Democrat and Republican political operatives and cosponsors – and introducing more proposals like HR 3307 to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC). Parallel efforts were launched in state legislatures, to maintain mandates, subsidies, feed-in tariffs, renewable energy credits, and other “temporary” ratepayer and taxpayer obligations.

This “emerging industry” is “vitally important” to our energy future, supporters insisted. It provides “clean energy” and “over 37,000” jobs that “states can’t afford to lose.” It helps prevent global warming.

None of these sales pitches holds up under objective scrutiny, and their growing awareness of this basic reality has finally made many in Congress inclined to eliminate this wasteful spending on wind power.

Entitlement advocates are petrified at that possibility. Crony corporatist lobbyists and politicians have built a small army to take on beleaguered taxpayers, rate payers and business owners who say America can no longer afford to spend more borrowed money, to prop up energy policies that drive up electricity costs, damage the environment, and primarily benefit foreign conglomerates and a privileged few.

To confront the growing onslaught of wind industry pressure and propaganda, citizens should understand the fundamental facts about wind energy. Here are some of the top reasons for opposing further handouts.

Energy 101. It is impossible to have wind turbines without fossil fuels, especially natural gas. Turbines average only 30% of their “rated capacity” – and less than 5% on the hottest and coldest days, when electricity is needed most. They produce excessive electricity when it is least needed, and electricity cannot be stored for later use.  Hydrocarbon-fired backup generators must run constantly, to fill the gap and avoid brownouts, blackouts, and grid destabilization due to constant surges and falloffs in electricity to the grid. Wind turbines frequently draw electricity from the grid, to keep blades turning when the wind is not blowing, reduce strain on turbine gears, and prevent icing during periods of winter calm.

Energy 201. Despite tens of billions in subsidies, wind turbines still generate less than 3% of US electricity. Thankfully, conventional sources keep our country running – and America still has centuries of hydrocarbon resources. It’s time our government allowed us to develop and use those resources.

Economics 101. It is likewise impossible to have wind turbines without perpetual subsidies – mostly money borrowed from Chinese banks and future generations. Wind has never been able to compete economically with traditional energy, and there is no credible evidence that it will be able to in the foreseeable future, especially with abundant natural gas costing one-fourth what it did just a few years ago. It thus makes far more sense to rely on the plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity sources that have powered our economy for decades, build more gas-fired generators – and recycle wind turbines into useful products (while preserving a few as museum exhibits).

Economics 201. As Spain, Germany, Britain and other countries have learned, wind energy mandates and subsidies drive up the price of electricity – for families, factories, hospitals, schools, offices and shops. They squeeze budgets and cost jobs. Indeed, studies have found that two to four traditional jobs are lost for every wind or other “green” job created. That means the supposed 37,000 jobs (perpetuated by $5 billion to $10 billion in combined annual subsidies, or $135,000 to $270,000 per wind job) are likely costing the United States 74,000 to 158,000 traditional jobs, while diverting billions from far more productive uses.

Environment 101. Industrial wind turbine projects require enormous quantities of rare earth metals, concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and other raw materials, for highly inefficient turbines, multiple backup generators and thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Extracting and processing these materials, turning them into finished components, and shipping and installing the turbines and power lines involve enormous amounts of fossil fuel and extensive environmental damage. Offshore wind turbine projects are even more expensive, resource intensive and indefensible. Calling wind energy “clean” or “eco-friendly” is an extraordinary distortion of the facts.

Environment 201. Wind turbines, transmission lines and backup generators also require vast amounts of crop, scenic and wildlife habitat land. Where a typical 600-megawatt coal or gas-fired power plant requires 250-750 acres, to generate power 90-95% of the year, a 600-MW wind installation needs 40,000 to 50,000 acres (or more), to deliver 30% performance. And while gas, coal and nuclear plants can be built close to cities, wind installations must go where the wind blows, typically hundreds of miles away – adding thousands of additional acres to every project for transmission lines.

Environment 301. Sometimes referred to as “Cuisinarts of the air,” US wind turbines also slaughter nearly half a million eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and otherwise protected flying creatures every year. (Those aren’t song birds killed by house cats, and this may be a conservative number, as coyotes and turbine operator cleanup crews remove much of the evidence.) But while oil companies are prosecuted for the deaths of even a dozen common ducks, turbine operators have been granted a blanket exemption from endangered and migratory species laws and penalties. Now the US Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing a formal rule to allow repeated “takings” (killings) of bald and golden eagles by wind turbines – in effect granting operators a 007 license to kill.

Environment 401. Scientific support for CO2-driven catastrophic manmade global warming continues to diminish. Even if carbon dioxide does contribute to climate change, there is no evidence that even thousands of US wind turbines will affect future global temperatures by more than a few hundredths of a degree. Not only do CO2 emissions from backup generators (and wind turbine manufacturing) offset any reductions by the turbines, but rapidly increasing emissions from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and other rapidly developing countries dwarf any possible US wind-related CO2 reductions.

Human Health and Welfare 101. Skyrocketing electricity prices due to “renewable portfolio standards” raise heating and air conditioning costs; drive families into fuel poverty; increase food, medical, school and other costs; and force companies to lay off workers, further impairing their families’ health and welfare. The strobe-light effect, annoying audible noise, and inaudible low-frequency sound from whirling blades result in nervous fatigue, headaches, dizziness, irritability, sleep problems, and vibro-acoustic effects on people’s hearts and lungs. Land owners receive royalties for having turbines on their property, but neighbors receive no income and face adverse health effects, decreased property values and difficulty selling their homes. Formerly close-knit communities are torn apart.

Real World Civics 101. Politicians take billions from taxpayers, ratepayers and profitable businesses, to provide subsidies to Big Wind companies, who buy mostly Made Somewhere Else turbines – and then contribute millions to the politicians’ reelection campaigns, to keep the incestuous cycle going.

It is truly government gone wild – GSA on steroids. It is unsustainable. It is a classic sWINDle.

Citizens can contact senators, congressmen, congressional committees and state representatives – to demand science-based energy policies. These reasons could be a good way to start the conversation.

Pentagon Goes Full Stupid: Defense Sec. Leon Panetta: [Man-made] ‘Climate change has a dramatic impact on national security’     

Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund: ‘Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief’

Climate Depot Responds

Pentagon Goes Full Stupid: Defense Sec. Leon Panetta: [Man-made] ‘Climate change has a dramatic impact on national security’ – Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund: ‘Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief’ — read more on Panetta here.

#

Climate Depot Responds:

Below is a rebuttal to man-made global warming and national security fears. Excerpted from Page 42 of Climate Depot’s A-Z Climate Reality Check report — Sub-Prime Science Exposé: ‘The claims of the promoters of man-made climate fears are failing’

NATIONAL SECURITY

New study: Global cooling led to wars, famine and plagues in 1560-1660: Cold ’caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes’

Debunked: the ‘climate change causes wars’ myth — ‘A total takedown’ of myth by the Center for Strategic and International Studies – ‘Since the dawn of civilization, warmer eras have meant fewer wars. The reason is simple: all things being equal, a colder climate meant reduced crops, more famine and instability. Research by climate historians shows a clear correlation between increased warfare and cold periods. They are particularly clear in Asia and Europe, as well as in Africa’

Global Conflict Not Linked to Global Climate Change – ‘Wars in Burundi, Chad, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Peru, the Comoros, Congo, Eritrea, Niger, and Rwanda are so numerous that I could probably make a statistical argument that one in five wars are due to the AFC winning the Super Bowl’

Climate Depot’s Inconvenient Rebuttal to ‘National Security’ Climate Argument – August 9, 2009

Shock News : Most Of The World’s Wars Occurred Below 350 PPM CO2 – ‘Now that we know that war is caused by global warming, I was very surprised to discover that the vast majority of wars occurred before 1988 – including the War of 1812′

Discovery News: Cold times led to angry runts, famine, and war; warm times led to The Renaissance

Remarkably sane article in Science: Warm periods are good, cold periods are bad

Time Mag reports: ‘Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, & political reforms followed every decline of temperature’ — ‘Number of wars increased by 41% in Cold Phase’ – ‘Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, and political reforms followed every decline of temperature, with a one- to 15-year time lag’

Study: Climate change ‘not to blame’ for African civil wars — ‘Climate variability in Africa does not seem to have a significant impact on risk of civil war’

UN Climate Chief: Middle East Was Peaceful When CO2 Was Below 350 PPM – UN’s Christiana Figueres: ‘Food shortages and rising prices caused by climate disruptions were among the chief contributors to the civil unrest coursing through North Africa and the Middle East’

So much for climate ‘national security’ threat: ‘All Large European Wars Occurred With CO2 Below 350 ppm’

Peer-reviewed paper ‘thoroughly eviscerates’ climate war claims — ‘The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental’

A recent study, co-authored by Fraser Institute energy economist Gerry Angevine, found that Ontario residents will pay an average of $285-million more for electricity each year for the next 20 years as a result of subsidies to renewable energy companies.

By the end of 2013, Ontario household power rates will be the second-highest in North America (after PEI), and they will continue to accelerate while they level off in most other jurisdictions. Even more alarming for Ontario’s economic competitiveness, businesses and industrial customers will be hit by almost $12-billion in additional costs over the same period.

Such is the legacy of the provincial government’s 2009 decision to establish feed-in rates, ranging from 44.5 cents to 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar power, and 13.5 cents/kWh for wind power. These solar feed-in rates average 11 times the 5.6 cents/kWh paid for nuclear-generated power, and 18 times the 3.5 cents/kWh for hydro-generated power. The wind-power rates are more than twice as high as nuclear, and four times those of hydro.

Besides the direct cost of these huge subsidies, there’s also a big hidden cost of fossil-fuelled standby facilities, because the wind doesn’t always blow and the Ontario sun certainly doesn’t always shine.

Faced with rising consumer reaction, the provincial government recently announced modest reductions to the feed-in rates, but they do nothing to change the results of the Fraser study because thousands of contracts have been guaranteed the higher rates for the next 20 years.

Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has predicted that the subsidies will propel Ontario to a world-leading position in green-power technology, creating thousands of jobs. Sadly, the Fraser study shows quite the opposite as the province’s already beleaguered manufacturing heartland sees its former electricity-cost advantage transformed into a competitive millstone.

Ontario isn’t the only place where grand green-power dreams have turned into a nightmare.

Several European countries began doling out subsidies nearly a decade ago. Germany has given away $130-billion, mostly to solar-power companies. Yet solar power makes up a minuscule 0.3 per cent of German power supply, while doing almost nothing toward the original objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In February, Germany’s Minister of Economics and Technology, Philipp Roesler, announced a pullback from green-power subsidies saying the cost was “a threat to the economy.”

Spain also poured cash into solar- and wind-power subsidies with little to show for it except a $25-billion increase in its national debt. And British consumers have grown increasingly outraged about paying some $700-million a year in wind-farm subsidies that produce less than 0.5 per cent of power demand.

In the United States, green-power companies have received more than $4-billion (U.S.) to build wind farms as part of the Obama administration’s massive job-stimulus program. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that those projects created a total of 7,200 temporary construction jobs and only 300 permanent jobs.

Federal grants and loan guarantees were also awarded to companies with rickety business plans. Last September, California-based Solyndra LLC sought bankruptcy protection after receiving $535-million in loan guarantees to build a solar-panel factory. This month, Solar Trust of America filed for bankruptcy after failing to meet the terms a $2.1-billion loan guarantee to build what was to be the world’s largest solar-power generation plant.

It isn’t only energy consumers and taxpayers who have been hit by the green-power mania. The Globe and Mail reported in February that 10 wind- and solar-equipment makers in China, India, Europe and the U.S. have seen their share prices collapse  by between 85 per cent and 98 per cent since 2008. A combination of ineffectual environmental benefit, escalating power costs and debilitating government deficits have driven a precipitous drop in the outlook for green-power subsidies.

The lessons of the green-power debacle are clear. For governments, the message is that forcing consumers and taxpayers to subsidize any business almost always leads to economic damage and political unpopularity. For investors, the lesson is that companies living on government subsidies may die when the handouts stop.

by Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.

British environmental guru James Lovelock, seen on March 17, 2009 in Paris, admits he was “alarmist” about climate change in the past.  Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far.”

The new book, due to be published next year, will be the third in a trilogy, following his earlier works, “Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity,” and “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can.”

The new book will discuss how humanity can change the way it acts in order to help regulate the Earth’s natural systems, performing a role similar to the harmonious one played by plants when they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Climate’s ‘usual tricks’

It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

In 2007, Time magazine named Lovelock as one of 13 leaders and visionaries in an article on “Heroes of the Environment,”which also included Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford.

“Jim Lovelock has no university, no research institute, no students. His almost unparalleled influence in environmental science is based instead on a particular way of seeing things,” Oliver Morton, of the journal Nature wrote in Time. “Humble, stubborn, charming, visionary, proud and generous, his ideas about Gaia have started a change in the conception of biology that may serve as a vital complement to the revolution that brought us the structures of DNA and proteins and the genetic code.”

Lovelock also won the U.K.’s Geological Society’s Wollaston Medal in 2006. In a posting on its website, the society said it was “rare to be able to say that the recipient has opened up a whole new field of Earth science study” – referring to the Gaia theory of the planet as single complex system.

However Lovelock, who works alone at his home in Devon, England, has fallen out with the green movement in the past, particularly after saying countries should build nuclear power stations to help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by coal and oil.

Asked if he was now a climate skeptic, Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.”
He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role.

“It (the sea) could make all the difference between a hot age and an ice age,” he said.

He said he still thought that climate change was happening, but that its effects would be felt farther in the future than he previously thought.
“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.

‘I made a mistake’

As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

Lovelock — who has previously worked with NASA and discovered the presence of harmful chemicals (CFCs) in the atmosphere but not their effect on the ozone layer — stressed that humanity should still “do our best to cut back on fossil fuel burning” and try to adapt to the coming changes.

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the U.K.’s respected Met Office Hadley Centre, agreed Lovelock had been too alarmist with claims about people having to live in the Arctic by 2100.

And he also agreed with Lovelock that the rate of warming in recent years had been less than expected by the climate models.

However, Stott said this was a short-term trend that could be within the natural range of variation and it would need to continue for another 10 years or so before it could be considered evidence that something was missing from climate models.

Stott said temperature records and other observations were “broadly speaking continuing to pan out” with what was expected.

He said there did need to be greater understanding of the effect of the oceans on the climate and added that air particles caused by pollution – which cool the Earth by reflecting the sun’s heat — from rapidly developing countries like China could be having an effect.

On Lovelock, Stott said he had “a lot of respect” for him, saying “he’s had a lot of good ideas and interesting thoughts.”

“I like the fact he’s provocative and provokes people to think about these things,” Stott said.

Keya Chatterjee, international climate policy director of environmental campaign group WWF-US, said in a statement that it was “hard not to get overwhelmed and be defeatist” about the challenges facing the planet, but suggested alarmist talk did not help persuade people to act to reduce climate change.

“While the problem is becoming increasingly urgent, we’ve found that focusing on the most dire predictions does not resonate with the public, governments, or business. People tend to shut off when a problem does not seem solvable,” she said.

“And that’s not the case with climate change because we can still avoid its worst impacts. We know that we already have all of the technologies needed to slow climate change down. We only lack the political will to go up against vested interests,” she added.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body on the subject, the world’s average temperature has risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. By 2100, it predicts it will rise by another 2 to 11.5 degrees, depending upon the levels of greenhouse gases emitted.

Asked to give its latest position on climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement that observations collected by satellites, sensors on land, in the air and seas “continue to show that the average global surface temperature is rising.”

The statement said “the impacts of a changing climate” were already being felt around the globe, with “more frequent extreme weather events of certain types (heat waves, heavy rain events); changes in precipitation patterns … longer growing seasons; shifts in the ranges of plant and animal species; sea level rise; and decreases in snow, glacier and Arctic sea ice coverage.”

NOAA reports its data in monthly U.S. and global climate reports and annual State of the Climate reports.

Its annual climate summary for 2011 said that the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the world was 0.92 degrees above the 20th century average of 57.0 degrees, making it the 35th consecutive year since 1976 that the yearly global temperature was above average.

“All 11 years of the 21st century so far (2001-2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of record. Only one year during the 20th century, 1998, was warmer than 2011,” it said.

In the interview, Lovelock said he would not take back a word of his seminal work “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,” published in 1979.
But of “Revenge of Gaia,” published in 2006, he said he had gone too far in describing what the warming Earth would see over the next century.

“I would be a little more cautious — but then that would have spoilt the book,” he quipped.

by Dennis ambler

On April 12^th, the National Park Foundation announced their 2012 Parks Climate Challenge Program Grantees.

So what is the Parks Climate Challenge Program?

This is from the press release:

“Since 2009, the Parks Climate Challenge program has encouraged the use of national parks as classrooms to educate students about climate change through funding and facilitation.  The ability to learn about this important issue through hands-on, science-based field curriculum, has proven a positive model through which to reach students.      

“Climate change is a profound problem and the youth of America need to be at the forefront of the solution,” said Neil Mulholland, President and CEO of the National Park Foundation. “The Parks Climate Challenge is just one of our programs that empowers our youth and strengthens our parks.”

Now in its third year, the program first connects with teachers, giving them the tools to create engaging curriculum to teach to their student on the subject of climate change.”

The Parks Climate Challenge website says that:

“This website serves as a resource to provide all teachers with the tools necessary to be successful in delivering national park centric climate change lessons.”

They describe their program by referring to the “Climate Literacy Principles” developed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

“These are the guiding and organizing principles for our resource offerings and are the measure by which you can judge the progress of your student’s understanding of climate change.”

Following the links takes us to the follow-up projects where these climate warriors pass on their new-found knowledge to even more vulnerable youngsters:

“After spending a month in North Cascades National Park and three days in Washington, DC, each student partnered with an elementary school class and their local national park to lead service projects in their home communities.”

The press release states that:

“This project was made possible through the generous support of Inner Spark Foundation and individual donors, and is done in partnership with the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation.”

A search for the Inner Spark Foundation reveals that it is a charitable foundation with an address in San Franciso, set up in 2006, with their latest IRS return filed in June 2010. There is no web site, and only details of one “officer”, with no details of trustees or a board of directors. In other words, it looks like a front organisation to hide the real sponsors of this program, whoever that might be.

The board of the National Parks Foundation is chaired by Ken Salazar and has as members, Ellen S. Alberding, President of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, where as a Senator, Barack Obama was a director and Peter Knight, President of Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, New York.

A teacher’s comment on the Parks Climate Challenge website directs colleagues to the Alliance for Climate Education, ACE.

Who are they and what do they do?

ACE describe itself as the national leader in high school climate science education.

“We’re an award-winning national nonprofit dedicated to educating America’s high school students about the science behind climate change and inspiring them to do something about it—while having fun along the way. We’re based in Oakland, California, with educator teams in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, Atlanta, New England, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

ACE delivers two core offerings: the ACE Assembly and Student Action Program.”

Who funds them?

“ACE is a 501 (c)(3) public charity. Our supporters play a significant role in the success of our work and we are honored to have the support of government agencies, private foundations, companies and individuals.”

The list includes Ebay, Google, Walt Disney, Walmart, McKibben’s 350, Saatchi and Saatchi, and many other organisations. They say about their donors:

“ACE will always be led by the world’s scientific consensus on climate change and will only accept funding if the prospective donor is committed to educating youth on the most updated climate science. The science ACE programs are built on will continue to be: (a) based on the most recent reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), some of the most heavily reviewed scientific work in history; and (b) reviewed by ACE’s Science Advisory Board – which includes some of the world’s leading climate scientists.”

It just so happens that their Science Advisory Board contains IPCC authors Kevin Arrigo, Reto Knutti and Terry Root from Stanford and AR4 WG1 lead author Susan Soloman from NCAR.

“ACE will never allow any funder to alter ACE’s commitment to educate students based on the world’s scientific consensus on climate change.

Any prospective corporate donation over $25K will be reviewed by a “Funding Review Committee” consisting of the ED, a staff member, a board member and an independent fundraising advisor. Before considering such corporate contribution, ACE’s Review Committee must determine that such corporation is committed to climate science education and curbing the causes of climate change.” 

Another teacher-recommended link from the Parks Climate Challenge website is to National Geographic, where you can download a 124 page booklet called Changing Climate – A guide for teaching climate change in grades 3-8.

The National Geographic Education Foundation Board includes former EPA administrator William K Reilly. Mr Reilly’s other credits are as former President and Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and currently WWF Chairman Emeritus, Chairman of the Board of the ClimateWorks Foundation, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, Co-Chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center Energy Project, Co-Chairman of the Board of the Global Water Challenge, and a Director of the Packard Foundation.

The European Version – Teachers Corner

These appalling propaganda pieces are for use with children up to the ages of nine years old. (H/T An Englishman’s Castle):  This book explains the causes and effects of climate change through the story of a boy who helps firemen extinguish a forest fire and save his friend Lila the fox.

This is the agenda that passes for climate science teaching in schools the world over and government agencies are all heavily involved in promoting the IPCC version of climate knowledge. Isn’t it ironic that the Heartland Institute was accused of attempting to “subvert the teaching of science”, when children are given such distorted information as fact by the education system.

EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan is bad for our pocketbooks, environment and energy policy

by Paul Driessen

The Obama Administration’s anti-hydrocarbon ideology and “renewable” energy mythology continues to subsidize crony capitalists and the politicians they help keep in office – on the backs of American taxpayers, ratepayers and motorists. The latest chapter in the sorry ethanol saga is a perfect example.

Bowing to pressure from ADM, Cargill, Growth Energy and other Big Ethanol lobbyists, Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency has decided to allow ethanol manufacturers to register as suppliers of E15 gasoline. E15 contains 15% ethanol, rather than currently mandated 10% blends.

The next lobbying effort will focus on getting E15 registered as a fuel in individual states and persuading oil companies to offer it at service stations. But according to the Associated Press and Washington Post, Team Obama already plans to provide taxpayer-financed grants, loans and loan guarantees to “help station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next five years” and promote the use of biofuels. 

Pummeled by Obama policies that have helped send regular gasoline prices skyrocketing from $1.85 a gallon when he took office to $4.00 today – many motorists will welcome any perceived “bargain gas.” E15 will likely reduce their obvious pump pain by several cents a gallon, thus persuading people to fill up their cars, trucks and maybe even boats, lawnmowers and other equipment with the new blends.

That would be a huge mistake.

E15 gasoline will be cheaper because we already paid for it with decades of taxpayer subsidies that the Congressional Budget Office says cost taxpayers $1.78 every time a gallon of ethanol replaced a gallon of gasoline. Ethanol blends get fewer miles per tank than gasoline. More ethanol means even worse mileage. People may save at the pump, but cost per mile will increase, as will car maintenance and repair costs.

Ethanol collects water, which can cause engine stalls. It corrodes plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Pre-2001 car engines, parts and systems may not be able to handle E15, which could also increase emissions and adversely affect engine, fuel pump and sensor durability. Older cars and motorcycles mistakenly (or for price or convenience) fueled with E15 could conk out on congested highways or in the middle of nowhere, boat engines could die miles from land or in the face of a thunderstorm, and snowmobiles could sputter to a stop in a frigid wilderness.

Homeowners and yard care professionals have voiced concerns that E15’s corrosive qualities could damage their gasoline-powered equipment. Because it burns hotter than gasoline, high ethanol gasoline engines could burn users or cause lawnmowers, chainsaws, trimmers, blowers and other outdoor power equipment to start inadvertently or catch fire, they worry.

As several trade associations have noted in a lawsuit, the Clean Air Act says EPA may grant a waiver for a new fuel additive or fuel blend only if it has demonstrated that the new fuel will not damage the emissions control devices of “any” engine in the existing inventory.  E15 has not yet met this requirement. EPA should not have moved forward on E15 and should not have ignored studies that indicate serious potential problems with this high-ethanol fuel blend.

Largely because of corn-based ethanol, US corn prices shot up from an annual average of $1.96 per bushel in 2005 to $6.01 in 2011. This year we will make ethanol from 5 billion bushels of corn grown on an area the size of Iowa. E15 fuels will worsen the problem, especially if corn crops fall below expectations.

Ethanol mandates mean more revenues and profits for corn growers and ethanol makers. However, skyrocketing corn prices mean beef, pork, poultry, egg and fish producers pay more for corn-based feed; grocery manufacturers pay more for corn, meat, fish and corn syrup; and families see prices soar for almost everything on their dinner table.

Farmers like pork producer Jim A were hammered hard. Over a 20-year period, Jim became a part owner in a Texas operation and planned to buy out the other shareholders. But when corn and ethanol subsidies went into effect, the cost of feed corn shot from $2.80 per bushel in 2005 to “over $7.00” a bushel in 2008. “We went from treading water and making payments, to losing $100,000 a month,” he told me.

His farm was threatened with foreclosure and the ominous prospect of having to make up the difference in a short sale. After “never missing a single payment to anybody” in his life, he almost lost everything. Fortunately, at the eleventh hour, a large pork producer leased the property, the bank refinanced his loans and Jim arranged a five-year lease. But thanks to ethanol he almost lost everything he’d ever worked for.

Even worse, the price of tortillas and tamales also skyrocketed, leaving countless poor Latin American families even more destitute. Soaring corn and wheat prices have also made it far harder for the USAID and World Food Organization to feed the world’s malnourished, destitute children.

Simply put, corn ethanol is wasteful and immoral. And yet E15 advocates want to go even further.

“For 40 years we have been addicted to foreign oil,” says Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “Our nation needs E15 to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, keep gas prices down at the pump, and end the extreme fluctuations in gas prices caused by our reliance on fuel from unstable parts of the world.”

That’s nonsense. America is blessed with centuries of untapped petroleum resources that antediluvian Deep Ecologists, ideology-driven politicians and EPA officials, and subsidy-obsessed renewable energy lobbyists seem intent on keeping locked up, regardless of the negative consequences.

These oil and gas deposits cannot be developed overnight. However, 40 years is not overnight. Yet that’s how long America has kept Alaska’s ANWR coastal plain, most of our Outer Continental Shelf, and most of our western states’ public lands and resources off limits to leasing, exploration and drilling.

If we had started the process twenty, ten or even five years ago, we’d have enough oil flowing to slash imports and cut world crude and US pump prices significantly. If President Obama had approved the Keystone XL pipeline, within two years over 800,000 barrels of Canadian, Montana and North Dakota crude would be flowing daily to Texas refineries – with similar effects on imports and prices.

Developing these resources would also generate hundreds of thousands of jobs – and billions of dollars in lease bonuses and rents, production royalties, and corporate and personal taxes.

America’s surging natural gas production has already driven that fuel’s price from $8 to barely $2.00 per thousand cubic feet (or million Btus). That alone will persuade auto makers to build nat-gas-powered cars and trucks (and consumers to buy them), without massive new subsidy programs as advocated by T. Boone Pickens and assorted politicians. Natural gas can even be converted into ethanol (and diesel).

It will happen, unless Congress interferes – or EPA tries to regulate horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) into oblivion, and send natural gas prices back into the stratosphere.

Right now, we are burning our own – and the world’s – food, to fuel cars and trucks. And to grow corn, convert it into 14 billion gallons of ethanol, and ship it by truck or train, we are consuming one-third of America’s entire corn crop  – and using millions of pounds of insecticides, billions of pounds of fertilizer, vast amounts of energy (all petroleum-based), and trillions of gallons of water.

Just imagine how those numbers will soar, if E15 is adopted nationwide – or if Big Ethanol’s big dream becomes reality, and motorists begin to burn “cheap” corn-based E85 in flex-fuel vehicles.

Will President Obama, Democrats and extreme environmentalists ever end their hatred of hydrocarbons, and their obsession with biofuels – and start embracing reliable, affordable energy that actually works?

By Dan Berman

President Barack Obama says the amount of money poured into fighting the scientific consensus on climate change will push the issue into the presidential campaign.

In an interview with Rolling Stone published Wednesday, Obama also says he’s worried about the lack of international progress to address global warming and believes that is tied to frustration with the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Part of the challenge over these past three years has been that people’s number-one priority is finding a job and paying the mortgage and dealing with high gas prices,” Obama said. “In that environment, it’s been easy for the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk climate-change science.

“I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way,” he added.

Obama didn’t mention Mitt Romney by name, but sought to contrast the GOP of today with 2008 standard-bearer John McCain, who for years sponsored cap-and-trade legislation with Sen. Joe Lieberman.

“Here’s a guy who not only believed in climate change, but co-sponsored a cap-and-trade bill that got 43 votes in the Senate just a few years ago, somebody who thought banning torture was the right thing to do, somebody who co-sponsored immigration reform with Ted Kennedy,” Obama said of McCain. “That’s the most recent Republican candidate, and that gives you some sense of how profoundly that party has shifted.”

Romney ran to the right in the Republican primary on global warming, saying in October that the causes of climate change are unknown.

“My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet,” Romney said at a fundraiser last fall. “And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner asked Obama about NASA climate scientist James Hansen’s statement that building the Keystone XL pipeline is “game over” for the planet, and while the president didn’t say he disagreed with that assessment, he suggested the lack of climate action is behind the anger over Keystone.

“The reason that Keystone got so much attention is not because that particular pipeline is a make-or-break issue for climate change, but because those who have looked at the science of climate change are scared and concerned about a general lack of sufficient movement to deal with the problem,” Obama said.

“Frankly, I’m deeply concerned that internationally, we have not made as much progress as we need to make,” he added.

Citizens For Limited Government: The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. On Earth Day, visit http://freemarketamerica.org/.