Environment

Subsidies and fuel efficiency standards are terrible ways to effect change.

Getting out of the Paris Agreement was just the first step on the road to a realist global energy policy.

B.D. McClay reviews Daisy Hildyard's 'The Second Body'—a thought experiment in how we relate to the world.

1) As many liberal commentators have eagerly pointed out, coal is a dying industry, and it makes no sense to prop up a dying industry. The issue, however, isn't whether Trump's pulling out of the Paris Agreement is propping it up so much as refusing to kill the industry prematurely. About a third…

Despite growing support from some conservative policy wonks, the idea of taxing carbon dioxide emissions, even as an alternative to the sort of heavy-handed greenhouse regulations promulgated by the Obama administration, has failed to garner much enthusiasm on the right.

President Obama announced today to much fanfare (and to much angst on the right) that he is killing the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline, which would transport Canadian tar sands oil through the United States. But as much as he would like to claim the mantle of environmentalism (this is the man who…

Pope, President, Prices and Paris. That covers just about everything you need to know about the next step in the battle to prevent what has come to be called climate change, the title now preferred to “global warming” by those who worry that CO2 emissions are causing, er, global warming. The Pope…

The president is taking Air Force One to Florida this week. He is going there, unsurprisingly, to make a speech. On Earth Day, about climate change. He could make the speech in Washington, of course, but he needs a prop—in this case, will be the Everglades, which he describes as “one of the most…

As if the plunging price of oil were not enough to doom the market for electric and hybrid automobiles, there is this from ABC News:

Last week was good for environmentalists, and perhaps even for the environment. President Obama doubled down on his effort to increase the likelihood of the success of the 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris, claiming the U.S. has “a special responsibility to lead. That’s what great nations…

The Scrapbook was dimly aware that the U.S. Army was reengineering its ammo but still was taken aback to read that it took 15 years and an estimated $100 million to come up with a new 5.56 NATO round for our infantrymen. It cost so much and took so long because, you know, it’s not easy being green.…

"Everything reminds Milton of the money supply," Robert Solow once said of his fellow Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman at a symposium. "Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper."

The fracking euphoria had to end. For three reasons. First, the claims for its benefits were wildly exaggerated, ensuring eventual disappointment as even a cheerful reality could not meet the imaginings of the pro-fossil-fuel gang. Second, environmental groups were not going to sit idly by, their…

The administration has made climate change its signature issue until something better comes along. This means that the the EPA will be walking point. After all, no new environmental legislation will be coming out of Congress. President Obama didn’t ever try for that when his party had majorities in…

The Keystone pipeline has been under study for five years and will be studied further. It will be built, or scuttled, when the politics are right.  For now, the pipeline, as Coral Davenport of the New York Times reports:

A new Gallup poll shows the American people say climate change is one of the problems they worry about the least.

Harry Reid claims that recent bad weather is more evidence climate change exists and needs a response from the federal government. Reid's comments today come just after the Senate's all-night "talkathon," during which several Democratic senators spoke back-to-back about climate change.

In recent days, the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, took to Twitter to express deep concern about the practice of a local Japanese tradition.

The EPA awarded $461,368 in grants this week for various environmental projects along the U.S.-Mexico border.  About half of the funds went to projects in Calexico, CA and Phoenix, AZ, but the remaining $230,000 went to two cities on the Mexican side of the border, Nogales and Ensenada.  The…

Although CO2 is considered a "greenhouse gas" that contributes to climate change, if the Energy Department (DOE) finds partners to capitalize on the research of one of its laboratories, someday cars might run on sunshine.  Technically, cars would run on the product of sunlight, CO2, and water using…

Daniel P. Schrag, a White House climate adviser and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, tells the New York Times "a war on coal is exactly what's needed." Later today, President Obama will give a major "climate change" address at Georgetown University. 

At a fundraiser last night in Chicago, President Barack Obama signaled that he's interested in his legacy as a president and insisted that he's willing to work with anyone.

The crusade to save the spotted owl continues.  It began with limiting timber sales on federally managed lands in order to preserve the owl's preferred habitat.  As a result, Teresa Platt writes:

While American environmentalists focus primarily on saving field mice and frustrating development and energy production on the home front, there’s a growing need for genuine conservation and stewardship to protect the natural habitats of the world’s grandest animals.  Take the cases of the rhino…

The AAA has joined the side of the crackpots resisting the burning of food in internal combustion engines:

A few years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency lost a string of high-profile lawsuits brought by environmentalists challenging the Bush administration's regulations. And in certain circles, it was fashionable to cite those as proof of the Bush EPA's incompetence if not its utter corruption.

An anti-Occupy Wall Street movement (who call themselves  "Occupy Occupy D.C.") protested bird killing wind turbines today at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The group gathered "to highlight the threat that wind, a celebrated alternative energy source, poses to the American bird community,"…

CNN reports:

The anti-Occupy Wall Street movement—or Occupy Occupy D.C., as they call themselves—held a rally today at Freedom Plaza to call for a “Cease Fire in Obama's War on Nature.” In particular, the rally goers in favor of freedom came out today to protest “the Obama Administration's new policy to kill…

ABC News: Romney's still the clear frontrunner in New Hampshire

The Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon kicked off today in Washington on the National Mall, under inauspiciously dark rainy skies. In a press release announcing the competition, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu is quoted as saying, "The Solar Decathlon collegiate teams are showing how…

Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer:

The Obama administration is now pushing a rather dubious defense for handing out $535 million in stimulus funds to the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. They're blaming Bush:

In 1950, real estate developers looking to satisfy postwar America’s burgeoning demand for housing decided that Assateague Island, a sandy slice of land off the Maryland and Virginia coasts, would make a good place for a new neighborhood. Using federal and state funds, they built a road running…

President Obama recently quashed a proposed new EPA ozone standard. Al Gore went so far as to express his disappointment in Obama publicly yesterday, accusing the president of "not "relying on science." But Perhaps Al Gore should learn to rely more on economics -- the proposed ozone standard would…

When even the New York Times is forced to confront reality, you know things are bad:

The July sales numbers are out and the Chevy Volt continues to electrify (get it?) the country. GM sold … 125 Volts last month!

Sure, we're routinely graduating kids in this country that can't read or do basic math -- but hey, let's lard up the curriculum with a bunch of politicized nonsense, shall we?:

This week, climate change activists suffered a major loss at the Supreme Court, which unanimously threw out their highly publicized lawsuit against power companies. Although—or perhaps because—the Court's opinion was clear and direct, the losing activists have sought desperately to spin a loss into…

"In Bin Laden’s Compound, Seals’ All-Star Team"

You see what happens when you bring rapacious lawyers and San Francisco politics together?:

Valerie Jarrett draws the line at releasing the president's college transcripts.

"Why is Barack Obama like a Teamsters business agent?"

Two excellent bits of reader email on the removal of phosphates from dishwasher detergents. The first is from a reader who has been pumping up his new detergent by adding his own phosphate. He notes that the customer review section of one trisodium phosphate product on Amazon features people…

The Climate Fix

Many lament the poor state of our economy. But those poor souls, oh how they miss the good in the bad recession:

Have you heard about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s “tabletop speech” at the National Bike Summit? Probably not, but it’s legendary in pro-bicycle, anti-car circles. LaHood got a wild standing ovation in March when he climbed on a table in a congressional hearing room, touted his…