[Editor note: For an in-depth look at Enron’s political capitalism model applied to the climate-change debate, see Bradley’s Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (M & M Scrivener Press, 2009)]
On four occasions, Joseph Romm at Climate Progress (Center for American Progress) has deployed an argument ad hominem against me, using my prior employment at Enron and my direct association with Ken Lay (see here, here, here, and here). My response to Romm earlier this week has received thousands of views and several blog links, including here.
The irony here is two-fold. First, Romm ignores the fact that I was an employee who personally challenged the company’s rent-seeking via climate alarmism. Secondly, and more ironic still, Enron was his darling company. Specifically, he was an unpaid consultant and collaborator with Enron Energy Services (EES), whose contracts were money losers, reflecting of paucity of economic energy savings.…
On May 5, 2009, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson signed a proposed rule to implement changes in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program required by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
Congress created the RFS–commonly known as the ethanol mandate–in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The leading rationale then was energy security. It was supposed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. EISA increased the size of the mandate from 7.5 billion gallons a year in 2012 to 36 billion gallons a year in 2022.
In addition, EISA established greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction standards that fuels must meet in order to qualify as “renewable.” Arguably, this was the first regulatory global warming policy that Congress ever enacted. Well, how much global warming will it avert? Answer: Too little for scientists to detect even if the new mandates are enforced throughout the 21st century.…
Yesterday’s MasterResource post looked at the potential climate impacts of the proposed Waxman-Markey Climate Bill. But I limited my analysis to only U.S. actions—after all, Waxman-Markey can’t mandate international man-made greenhouse gas reduction timetables. But, what would happen if the rest of the world wanted to join in?
The Bottom Line
The ability of the industrialized world, through emissions reductions alone, to impact the future course of global climate is minimal. If the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe, and former Soviet countries all limited their emissions of greenhouse gases according to the schedule laid out under Waxman-Markey—a monumental, unexpected development—it would, at most, avoid only a bit more than one-half of a °C of projected global warming (out of 4.5°C—or only about 10%). And this is under worst-case emissions assumptions; middle-of-the-road scenarios and less sensitive climate models produce even less overall impact.…