Turn your snow shovels into a lawn chair – that’s just one benefit of global warming for Minnesotans.
Minnesotans for Global Warming has to be the hottest political groups in the Twin Cities. They jokingly ask people to stop breathing since we contribute to CO2 the global emissions.
I had the good fortune of meeting the brains behind M4GW this past weekend. Check out their blog.
MPR: Farmer uses methane to make electricity
He uses the heated cow poo (using a “manure digester”) to power a modified Chevy 350 engine with the methane.
Plus, it makes him “feel good”. Which is really all that matter, right?
“I think it’s another piece of the puzzle,” Jennison said. “I think it’ll take a lot of different things to solve our energy problems, and I think this can be part of it.”
The Pioneer Press investigates the otherwise unseen costs of regulations on housing prices. I’m not surprised that they estimate the cost of compliance with housing regulations at 20-30% of the price, are you? That equals $40-60,000 added to the price of a $200,000 home.
The author describes some of the requirements that contribute to the extra costs:
In the past, when buyers wanted a certain type of home, developers built it, said Ed Goetz, professor of Urban and Regional Planning for the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
But now, thanks to regulations, they can’t.
“This is not a free market,” Goetz said.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus opposes the “climate alarmism” perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.
Klaus is promoting his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles – What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?
“Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,” he said.
“In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat – this time, in the name of the planet,” he added.
Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he oppposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.
“It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda,” he said.
Klaus alleged that the global warming was being championed by scientists and other environmentalists whose careers and funding requires selling the public on global warming.
Eating Organic might make you fell all warm and fuzzy, but is all the hype true? Don’t fall for these organic myths. Link via the PintPundit. But seriously, Cambridge chemist John Emsley recently concluded, “The greatest catastrophe that the human race could face this century is not global warming but a global conversion to ‘organic farming’–an estimated 2 billion people would perish.”
And, what’s the big deal about “food miles“? A new study from two Carnegie Mellon University researchers says you can counter greenhouse gas emissions and earn some climate change absolution (while continuing to eat out-of-season foods) simply by giving up red meat for one day per week.
Scrap capitalism, save the planet: Morales
This INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY editorial follows up with some history of environmental protection under some other anti-capitalist systems.
Morales is a Marxist, so the environmental records of the communist and socialist systems he touts to save the earth are instructive.
After communism fell in Eastern Europe, some of the biggest revelations were about how vast the pollution was in countries where no one was permitted to own or care for land.
Getting rid of capitalism created the black rivers of China, filled Eastern Europe’s skies with unfiltered coal and diesel exhaust, brought deforestation that’s led to sandstorms in China, spilled oil that destroyed Siberian lakes, and poisoned land with mercury and nickel waste in large swaths of Eastern Europe and Cuba.
It also brought the still-dead nuclear devastation of Chernobyl. Diverse as these regions are, the lack of capitalism means there was no accountability or incentives to save the earth.
And, sadly, it’s still that way now. According to the Blacksmith Institute, the 10 most polluted places on earth are in Azerbaijan, China, India, Peru, Russia, Ukraine and Zambia, all of which have long histories of communism, socialism or nationalist isolation, the very alternatives Morales proposes to replace capitalism.
Morales’ attack on capitalism represents the real agenda for the radical environmentalists. They seek global governance and an end to private property, an unsalable concept given the record of communist countries. So they’re marketing it under a new brand name, wrapped in the greener concept of “saving the earth.”
…But in reality, it’s capitalism — combined with the framework that enables it to flourish, like rule of law and property rights — that has lifted billions of people out of poverty and improved the environment. Contrary to Morales’ assertions, the most capitalist countries are also the cleanest.
According to a 2006 study by the Heartland Institute, free enterprise does more to protect the environment than state intervention.
“The nations that have the best track records on environmental protection and improvement are those with the highest amount of free-market capitalism,” wrote Samuel Aldrich and Jay Lehr, in “Free Enterprise Protects the Environment.”
…Romanticization of nature to promote state control hasn’t had it this good since the days of Rousseau’s noble savage. The only problem for environmental radicals, of course, is that sometimes the designated “savages” accidentally reveal the truth.
The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change
Steven Hayward does the math:
”Way too little and way too late,” runs the refrain, followed by the claim that nothing less than an 80% reduction in emissions by the year 2050 will suffice – what I call the “80 by 50″ target. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have endorsed it. John McCain is not far behind, calling for a 65% reduction.
Right now our cars and trucks consume about 180 billion gallons of motor fuel. To meet the 2050 target, we shall have to limit consumption of gasoline to about 31 billion gallons, unless a genuine carbon-neutral liquid fuel can be produced. (Ethanol isn’t it.) To show how unrealistic this is, if the entire nation drove nothing but Toyota Priuses in 2050, we’d still overshoot the transportation emissions target by 40%.
The enthusiasm for an 80% reduction target is often justified on grounds that national policy should set an ambitious goal. However, claims on behalf of alternative energy sources – biofuels, hydrogen, windpower and so forth – either do not match up to the scale of the energy required, or are not cost-competitive in current form.
How on God’s green earth will we make up the difference? Someone should put this question to the candidates. And not let them slide past it with glittering generalities.
Biofuels quota => higher food prices? part II, US edition.
Q: How much of the US corn crop is used for ethanol?
I was surprised to find out today that about a third of the US corn crop is used to produce ethanol! That’s according to this USA Today article discussing the expected higher prices for corn this year. The article fingers biofuels mandates as one major contributor to the higher demand, and thus, the higher price of corn.
High energy prices have increased the cost of production. In addition, the U.S. and other nations have mandated increased use of biofuels, including corn-based ethanol. That has led to competition for acreage, contributed to a doubling of many grain prices and caused food riots in nations such as China and Pakistan.
With ethanol demand surging, U.S. farmers last year planted the largest corn crop since 1944. Even with the predicted decline in acreage, the 2008 crop could be one of the largest on record. Still, with the ethanol industry expected to claim about a third of the corn crop, and the USDA saying that stockpiles are lower than expected, there is the potential for shortages.
“Basically, we’re spending our tax dollars to raise the price of our food so we can subsidize the ethanol and big oil companies,” says Ray Atkinson, Pilgrim’s Pride director of communications.
Which is exactly my point in this post. Some well-intentioned government farm aid programs produce counter-productive incentives by helping one groups of people (farmers get paid to not plant) and hurt another group (higher food prices for consumers in the US and globally).
John Beddington, the [UK] government’s current chief scientific adviser, has already expressed scepticism about biofuels. At a speech in Westminster this month he said demand for biofuels from the US had delivered a “major shock” to world agriculture, which was raising food prices globally. “There are real problems with the unsustainability of biofuels,” he said, adding that cutting down rainforest to grow the crops was “profoundly stupid”.
This piece in the Guardian discusses why the UK is about to fight the EU’s pending biofuels quota of 10% by 2020. Not surprisingly, the EU’s quota could result in higher food prices. Does anyone actually expect a government quota to produce positive results? Or even, results without unintended negative consequences?
Watch out, according to the Energy Action Coalition, April 1st is Fossil Fools Day.
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