Source:  SPPI

Rules that make cars less affordable – and less safe – are unethical and should be reconsidered

by Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Legislators and regulators need to observe a fundamental Golden Rule: Do not implement new laws if you have not considered or cannot control important unintended consequences.

A perfect example is the Obama Administration’s plan to increase new car mileage standards, from the currently legislated requirement of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 to 54.5 mpg by 2025, as an average across each automaker’s complete line of cars and light trucks. (more…)

Source: SPPI

by Niger Innis and Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr.

This kind of “environmental justice” we can do without.

From New York, Washington and Atlanta to Chicago, St. Louis and Dallas, America is baking in a furnace. As millions swelter and gasp, they thank their lucky stars for air-conditioned cars, homes, offices and other places of refuge. And for the reliable, affordable electricity that makes AC possible.

Previous generations weren’t so fortunate. When a record heat wave slammed the nation in July 1936, Midwest temperatures hit 100-107 for a week. With most homes and businesses lacking even fans in this pre-AC era, millions suffered heat prostration. In Wisconsin, 449 died. Nationwide, thousands perished.

Now the EPA and NAACP want to send America back to the “good old days.” Under a perverse notion of “environmental justice,” they are promoting tough new air quality rules that would shut down dozens of coal-fired power plants that make affordable AC possible for millions of poor and minority families. (more…)

Source:  Climate Audit

by Steve McIntyre

In 2009, Peter Gleick wrote: “Fear is an effective tool.” A lesson, it seems, that was not lost on Gleick himself, who used the occasion of the recent tornado outbreak to prophesy “accelerating” “death and destruction”. While Gleick’s opportunistic attempt to exploit the tornado event has been criticized (e.g. Pielke here, it seems to me that Gleick’s apocalyptic rhetoric has attracted insufficient attention, especially when measured against his prior editorials on fearmongering.

Gleick categorically asserted that science says that “climate is worsening”:

Violent tornadoes throughout the southeastern U.S. must be a front-page reminder that no matter how successful climate deniers are in confusing the public or delaying action on climate change in Congress or globally, the science is clear: Our climate is worsening. (more…)

Source: FOX NEWS

SPPI Note:  Robert Kennedy’s serial false and exaggerated claims could fill a volume.  For example, see this expert critique on his grasp of facts relative to wind energy.

Here:  Evaluation of Kennedy Jr’s Statement in West VA about Wind Energy, Deluded Delusional or Dishonest?

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In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama made a bold pledge for “clean energy,” drawing a mostly positive reaction, and in 2009 his administration announced plans to pour $1 billion into “clean coal” project FutureGen.

However, one person unimpressed with the clean talk is environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who stars in the upcoming anti-coal mining documentary, “The Last Mountain.”

“I would like Obama to stop saying that ‘clean coal’ phrase,” Kennedy told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column in an interview promoting the film. “I would like him to end the subsidies to coal and oil, and do things we need to do to rationalize free market capitalism in this country so we can have real free market capitalism, and give proper incentives to wind and solar, which we are going to need to beat the Chinese in the marketplace and restore prosperity in our country.” (more…)

Source: Amazon.com

by Brian H. Fiedler

For three decades, I had a ringside seat to some of the events in the book. As a young post-doc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 1982, I recall a seminar in which we were shown a plot of average global temperature for the past century, and then a modeling effort that included various combinations of three forcings: volcanic aerosols, solar variability and rising CO2 concentration. Good agreement with the rising trend of temperature was obtained only with the inclusion of CO2 (and presumably the feedback processes in the model). We were invited to conclude that the model was pretty good, and that the forecast for the future increase of temperature was credible. (more…)

Source:  SPPI

by Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. and Niger Innis

Attacks on coal-mining and use would trample on hopes, progress, living standards and lives

Are these people crazy? Are they so disconnected from reality that they don’t understand how vital coal is to jobs, living standards, civil rights progress and life itself?

How else can anyone react to a new environmentalist campaign to erect black crosses at coal mines and coal-fired power plants, to symbolize their opposition to this vital energy source? The Black Cross Alliance (BCA) is little more than another sordid campaign against affordable energy, especially hydrocarbons. Its policies are misguided at best, harmful and even lethal at worst. (more…)