February 2005 Archives

Due to recently enacted legislation, the Bureau of Land Management is now authorized to sell wild horses that live on federal lands. If there are no takers, some of the horses will be sold to slaghterhouses. This new policy has many horse-lovers upset, according to this report in the Washington Post.

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Roger Pielke has a characteristically thoughtful post on the politicization of science on the Prometheus science policy blog.

It is clear that there is an ample supply of people willing to use concern over the politicization of science as a political bludgeon to score points on the Bush Administration. It is also clear that there are plenty of others aligned with the Bush Administration willing to do exactly the opposite. The question I have is, where are the analysts (including reporters) who care about the politicization of science irrespective of possible advantages that are lent to today’s partisan political battles?

John Holdren and others assailed Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist for, among other things, daring to suggest that there was continuing concern about energy scarcity. The real issue, Holdren wrote in Scientific American was not supplies of carbon-based fuels, such as oil, but rather the environment's ability to withstand their continued use. To contend otherwise, Holdren claimed, was to attack a straw man. (The full Scientific American critique and Lomborg's response is here.) Funny how this "straw man" refuses to die.

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Nebraska clean air officials are on the case!

Story here.

The MSM still have some uses.

In this past Saturday's Financial Times' review of Walter Russell Mead's "Power, Terror, Peace and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk," the reviewer criticizes Mead for failing to discuss climate change: "Striking, but also characteristic of the US right, and potentially disastrous for some of Tony Blair's hopes, is Mead's absolute indifference to concerns over climate change. He barely mentions it, but it is to be assumed that he would dismiss the issue as only more of the 'eloquent wailing' from Fordist elites. It is not just that he displays no willingness to compromise - he obviously regards as unimportant a threat that could bring our civilization down in ruins, and which is now seen by leading European governments as a vital national interest."

This is a serious book review? Mead is slammed not for what he said, or even for not saying anything about climate change issues (understandable to me, at least, given his title) - but because "it is to be assumed that he would dismiss the issue"? Even books on "Power, Terror, Peace and War" must now conform to Kyoto?

Today President Bush nominated Lynn Scarlett to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior. Currently Scarlett is Assistant Scretary for Policy, Management & Budget.

Too often environmental policy discussions assume that the only way to advance environmental values is to create a government program or adopt new regulations. The potential for private initiative to conserve environmental treasures is overlooked. Yet where private action is viable, it is often superior to government efforts. Private preserves are generally better maintained than government parks and, where it's been tried, conservation through commerce has been more successul than the species protectionism embodied in the Endangered Species Act.

A new report, Conservation through Private Initiative: Harnessing Amerian Ingenuity to Preserve Our Nation's Resources, by my good friend (and sometimes Commons Blog contributor) Michael DeAlessi illustrates the above point, and suggests that private efforts have the added advantage of diffusing conflict. Whereas politics often produces a zero-sum game, voluntary initiatives can produce true win-win scenarios.

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Environmental sage Bill McKibben is upset that more environmentalists don't really support wind power. Sure, national environmental groups talk about the importance of wind as an alternative energy source, but green groups nonetheless oppose many of the wind farm proposals that are actually put on the table, such as the plan to put wind turbines off the coast of Cape Cod.

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Mark Hart, a member of the Anglican clergy in the UK, has written an article today in The Times (UK) commenting on a new report -- called Sharing God's Planet -- that the Church of England will issue and debate tomorrow (16 February), as well as recent statements sanctioned by the Church on free trade, equating the former with "AIDS, drought and tsunamis".

In the report, the Church has rubber-stamped 'contraction and convergence' as a policy approach to climate change. (For more about contraction and convergence, read an article that I wrote for the Journal of Engineering Sustainability)

Hart takes issue generally with the church using its divine authority to comment on matters political, whether free trade or the environment:

To imagine that the Church has a special revelation that enables it to cut through these complex issues is like expecting the Met Office to forecast the date of the Second Coming. The Church should not so casually claim Christ’s authority to adopt a corporate position which may be proved wrong, while excluding faithful dissenters.

From Wednesday's Washington Post:

The [Kyoto] treaty is aimed at controlling global warming linked to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Although the United States helped shape it, President Bush pulled the United States out as soon as he took office.

Three sentences. None accurate.

The first is inaccurate by omission, as it fails to address even the possibility of economic and/or strategic motives for the treaty. (More details here and here.)

The second is correct only insofar as there was a conference in Kyoto in 1997 in which some of the negotiations took place. There were other official conferences and many negotiations in many places. (The U.S. actually signed the treaty at the Buenos Aires, Argentina conference in November, 1998.)

The third is flatly false. The U.S. has never withdrawn from Kyoto. President Bush, like President Clinton, has declined to send the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate, but the U.S. remains a party to international treaty conferences and the Bush Administration has not removed the U.S. as a signatory to the Kyoto Treaty. (More details here.)

I'd fisk this article more, but I have a life.

Cross-posted on The National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

The February 16 Washington Post has this quote about the Kyoto global warming treaty:

"The greatest value is symbolic," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

No doubt that's just what the citizens of the countries that ratified it want to hear.

Nothing like losing your job or paying more for necessities in service of a symbol.

Cross-posted on The National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

This U.S. government report says Italian environmentalists are protesting because the U.S. has declined to ratify the Kyoto agreement.

Meanwhile, this European Union report says Italy ratified Kyoto, but is not complying with it.

Cross-posted on The National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

In theory, the unfunded mandates reform law passed in the 104th Congress prevents the imposition of new unfunded mandates. The Safe Drinking Water Act was also reformed in 1996 to give local water systems more flexibility and further lighten the mandate burden. But some are not sure it worked out that way.

When I was out in Oregon last weekend I noticed this editorial decrying EPA rules requiring additional water filtration systems to address the virtually non-existent cryptosporidium threat in Portland's water supply. According to the Oregonian:

The risk of contracting crypto from drinking Portland tap water is close to zero. Not zero, we should emphasize, because it could theoretically happen, but the odds are against it. It's not something to sit up nights worrying about. And it's not something that ratepayers of the Portland Water Bureau should invest up to $60 million or more to eradicate.

It is one thing for the EPA to inform local communities about potential risks in local water supplies. It is quite another to force local communities to adopt "protective" measures that are unwanted and may come at the expense of other, more important local priorities.

The editorial was headlined "GOP Should Help City Get Waiver." Perhaps. On ther other hand, maybe politicans of both parties should find ways to grant state and local governments greater flexibility in environmental policy.

The Associated Press seems determined to spin global warming, even at the cost of its own reputation.

On The National Center's website I have analyzed several recent AP wire stories on global warming, all of which are breathtakingly biased in favor of the global warming theory.

Bias, however, is standard fare for global warming reporting. What is striking is that objective facts are missreported in the service of that bias. (Dan Rather, call your office).

For example, readers are told that "greenhouse gases" are in the atmosphere "mostly from fossil-fuel burning."

Actually, the major greenhouse gas is water vapor, but in the interest of charity, we'll put that aside and focus on carbon dioxide. "Most" of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not come from burning fossil fuels -- only about 14 percent of it does. Furthermore, carbon dioxide accounts for less than ten percent of the greenhouse effect, as carbon dioxide's ability to absorb heat is quite limited.

There's more.

A year ago, I wrote a similar piece about the AP's global warming coverage, correcting the same errors and several others. It looks like the AP couldn't be bothered with fact-checkers a year ago and it still can't.

In addition to criticizing these AP wire stories, I also criticized a different AP wire story that gave the world the impression that a panel of qualified experts had just - stop the presses! - determined that the world has only a short time left to act on global warming, as the world is "approaching the critical point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea-levels would be irreversible."

But the experts turned out to be led by politicians, not climate scientists, and the groups that assembled them turned out to be former Clinton Administration Chief-of-Staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress and two self-described liberal activist outfits located abroad.

Cross-posted on The National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

That's the title of an article over at mineweb regarding a grand jury's criminal charges against W.R. Grace employees in connection with the vermiculite that was mined at Libby, Montana for several years. The action states that the executives at Grace knew of the toxic effects of the asbestos fibers and were keeping it from the public.

Thomas V. Skinner, EPA's acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said "this criminal indictment is intended to send a clear message" we will pursue corporations and senior managers who knowingly disregard environmental laws and jeopardize the health and welfare of the workers and the public."

It’s an accident of geology that most of the world’s proven reserves of low-cost oil are in unfriendly or politically unstable countries. This reality prompts calls to “reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

A recent article in Slate magazine describes an alliance of Iraq war hawks seeking to reduce American dollars flowing to oil-rich Islamic theocracies, e.g., Saudi Arabia. James Woolsey, the former director of the CIA, and Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, believe reducing our demand for imported oil is “a national security imperative.” Their preferred method is through conservation (e.g., Woolsey drives a 58-miles-per-gallon Toyota Prius).

In his piece “The Geo-Green Alternative,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman posits that lower oil revenues will spur reform of corrupt Arab regimes. “You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran.... Shrink the oil revenue and they will ... open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women.... It is that simple.”

Well, is it?

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National Center Policy Analyst Ryan Balis has a letter in the Washington Post today on the cost of containing sprawl.

As per usual with environmentalist schemes, the cost of "smart growth" anti-sprawl initiatives tends to be borne by those who can least afford it.

As Ryan says in his letter:

The Feb. 3 Metro story on plans by the District and other area officials to control "suburban sprawl" with ever-denser development ["Building Strategies to Map Out Growth"] did not address the policy's effect on rising home prices.

Suppressing housing development as demand for it grows will cause prices to skyrocket. This is evident in Portland, Ore., long considered a model for "smart growth" planning. There, fewer than half the homes in 2002 were affordable to median-income earners. The city plunged from the 55th-most-affordable city in the country in 1991 to 163rd place in those rankings in 2002.

Is the Washington area going to follow in forcing out thousands of low- and middle-income residents?

Ryan Balis
Policy Analyst
National Center for Public Policy Research
Washington

The National Center has published an econometrics study examining the impact of so-called "smart growth" policies. Based on an examination of the record of the policy in practice in Portland, Oregon, the study revealed that smart growth housing restrictions disproportionately penalize minorities, the poor, urban families and the young.

What's more, the policies fail to generate the expected environmental benefits, actually increasing suburbanization rates while failing to reduce vehicle miles traveled or congestion.

Our study asked this question: If cities nationwide had adopted Portland's smart growth policies in 1992, how would America's most disadvantaged populations been affected by 2002? We learned:

1) 260,000 minority homeowners circa 2002 would not have been able to become homeowners;

2) One million homeowners of all races circa 2002 would not have been able to afford their homes by that year;

3) The average home price in 2002 would have been $10,000 more expensive;

4) The average cost of renting a home or apartment in 2002 would have increased six percent over its actual price.

We dubbed our report "Smart Growth and Its Effects on Housing Markets: The New Segregation" -- so named because smart growth policies deter minorities from home ownership at disproportionate rates.

The study is available for download (PDF file) here.

Cross-posted on the National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

...global warming theory advocates seek their vaunted "scientific consensus" that their theories are right and the data will catch up eventually...

Illarionov Criticizes Censorship Bias at Climatic Conference

LONDON, February 2 (RIA Novosti's Alexander Smotrov) - Presidential economic aide Andrei Illarionov criticizes the policy of censorship practiced at the British Climate Change Conference.

The scientific conference of G8 experts is held in Exeter in the south of Britain on February 1 through 3.

"Its organizers have not accepted reports from many participants whose views are different from that of the organizers,'" Mr. Illarionov told RIA Novosti in the interview.

Asked by the RIA Novosti correspondent why his name is not in the list of speakers, Mr. Illarionov said: "Making a report here is impossible because organizers practice a policy of censorship against people having different points of view."

Mr. Illarionov is against the Kyoto Protocol, which intends the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions.

He draws a parallel between the refusal of organizers of the British conference to allow a number of reports to be made to the similar situation prevailing on eve of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. "The situation is the same here as well as in Davos and in the organization called the IPCC (Interparliamentary Panel on Climate Change)," the presidential economic aide said.

Last week he refused to participate in the Davos forum because he was not allowed to speak up at the sessions on climate change...

-From the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti, February 2, 2005

Cross-posted on the National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

On February 22, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Kelo v. New London, a case challenging the use of eminent domain for economic development. Those interested in Kelo may also be interested in today's conference on "Eminent Domain, Urban Renewal & The Constitution." The conference considers both the constitutional and policy aspects of eminent domain, particularly the use of eminent domain for economic development. The proceedings are viewable via webcast here. The conference is co-sponsored by the Case Center for Business Law & Regulation and the Federalist Society Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Group. Speakers include Thomas Merrill (Columbia University), Tim Sandefur (Pacific Legal Foundation), Sam Staley (Reason Public Policy Institute), Jeffrey Finkle (International Economic Development Council), and Peter Byrne (Georgetown University).

Green Mountain Energy likes to bill itself as a "green" source of energy. Some environmentalists aren't so convinced, and have launched a boycott. Of course, some might argue that "green" energy isn't so green in the first place.

The National Center for Public Policy Research's Ryan Balis has suggested I recommended this Miami Herald op-ed by Patrick Moore to blog readers.

Moore is a founder of the environmental group Greenpeace.

In the op-ed, Moore explains why he left Greenpeace ("By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus.").

He also complains that the present day environmental movement brings us "environmental policies that ignore science and result in increased risk to human health and ecology," and explains. Sample sentences:

On Greenpeace wanting to ban vinyl: "Apart from lowering construction costs and delivering safe drinking water, vinyl's ease of maintenance and its ability to incorporate anti-microbial properties is critical to fighting germs in hospitals."

On nuclear power: "Nuclear energy is the only nongreenhouse gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand."

On activists who want to stop tree harvesting: "If we want to retain healthy forests, we should be growing more trees and using more wood, not less."

On the campaign against salmon farming: "Salmon farming takes pressure off wild stocks, yet activists tell us to eat only wild fish. Is this how we save them, by eating more?"

I'd like to quote more, but then I would be quoting the whole thing.

Cross-posted on The National Center's blog.