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The Insull Speech of 1898: Call for Public Utility Regulation of Electricity (The origins of EEI’s support for cap-and-trade in today’s energy/climate bill)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2010

[Editor note: Bradley is currently working on the second volume of his political capitalism trilogy. Book 1, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy, came out last year.  Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies (Scrivener Press/John Wiley & Sons) will examine the rise and fall of the father of the modern electricity industry, Samuel Insull. Publication of Book 2 is scheduled for year-end.]

“Several electric utilities, including nuclear power giant Exelon and PG&E, joined more than 170 businesses to punctuate the importance of placing a price on carbon through a complex bill that is facing a political impasse.”

 – Evan Lehmann, “Businesses Push Reid to Abandon Immigration for Climate,”E&E News, April 29, 2010

The Edison Electric Institute has controversially thrown its support behind cap-and-trade legislation sponsored by Sens.…

Gerald North: The Non-Alarmist Alarmist? (A challenge to Texas A&M’s noted climatologist to explain himself on his recent move to Dessler-Left alarmism)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 25, 2010

[Editor note: This is Part V of a series of posts on the political activism of climate scientists at Texas A&M.]

“I really enjoyed the ‘fact’ that I saved you from being a ‘climate alarmist’. Frankly, your descriptions of my colleague Andrew Dessler are outrageous. You seem to forget that he spent several hours tutoring you and your student from [Kinkaid] on climate change during a university holiday. As I said to Steve McIntyre after spending hours trying to help him, then being mocked in his blog, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’. I am afraid to say anything more to you via email.”

– Gerald North to Rob Bradley, April 17, 2010 (cc Eric Berger, William Dawson, Andrew Dessler)

Dear Jerry:

I asked for substantive feedback from you to my post(s) and instead got a sarcastic, emotional response.

Climate Model Magic: Washington Post Today, Gerald North Yesterday (Part IV in a series)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 13, 2010

[The other parts of this series on the activism of Texas A&M climatologists are here: Part I, Part II, and Part III]

“If the models are as flawed as critics say … you have to ask yourself, ‘How come they work?'”

– Gavin Schmidt [NASA], quoted in David Fahrenhold, “Scientists’ Use of Computer Models to Predict Climate Change is Under Attack,Washington Post, April 6, 2010.

“We do not know much about modeling climate. It is as though we are modeling a human being. Models are in position at last to tell us the creature has two arms and two legs, but we are being asked to cure cancer.”

     – Gerald North (Texas A&M) to Rob Bradley (Enron), November 12, 1999

A Washington Post piece last week, “Scientists’ use of computer models to predict climate change is under attack,” has brought attention to the importance of climate modeling in the current debate over climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases (GHGs).…

1Q-2010 MasterResource Activity Report: Continued Progress

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 10, 2010

Obama’s Offshore Drilling Misdirection (Say What, Daniel Yergin?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 2, 2010

Loren Steffy (Houston Chronicle) to Pew Environmental Group: “So What?” About China’s Renewable Energy Policy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 1, 2010

Howlin’ Wolf: Paul Ehrlich on Energy (Part III: Conservationism)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 23, 2010

Howlin’ Wolf: Paul Ehrlich on Energy (Part II: Failed Predictions)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 20, 2010

Reconsidering the Dessler/North Op-Ed on Settled Alarm, Climategate-as-Distraction (Part III in a series)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 19, 2010

Andrew Dessler and Gerald North on Climategate, Climate Alarmism, and the State of Texas’s Challenge to the U.S. EPA’s Endangerment Finding (Part I in a series)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 17, 2010