An outstanding energy/climate scholar/communicator of our time is Marlo Lewis, Jr., senior fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). I am moved to high-five my friend as I read his recent post, “Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, and Human Well Being,” as well as an older one, “[DOE] Secretary Chu Crosses the Line; Should Resign (October 2009).
Human Improvement, CO2 Enrichment
Regarding Lewis’s recent post, consider his framing question.
Climate campaigners demand ever-greater government control over energy markets, resources, and infrastructure. Many believe the best thing governments can do with fossil energy is “keep it in the ground.” They claim fossil-fueled civilization is “unsustainable” and headed for a climate catastrophe. Are they correct?
And his answer:
… Continue ReadingSince 1950, fossil fuel consumption increased by 550 percent, annual global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 500 percent, atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by about one-third, and the world warmed about 0.65 degrees Celsius.
“The ‘vast majority’ of CO2 pipelines carry carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery, according to US Department of Energy…. But this free-market niche is a now being joined [via the Carbon Capture Coalition] by a wholly new application for CO2 that is all about government mandates and subsidies.”
“As Wendall Phillips warned in 1852, ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Power is ever stealing from the many to the few’.”
Government goes to those who show up. This aphorism explains the growth of government: those particularly advantaged by special government favor organize and lobby while the rest of us tend to our private business.
Such cronyism marks real-world government versus the romantic view wherein impartial legislators above the special-interest fray wisely block the entreaties of those who would injure the common interest of taxpayers and consumers.…
Continue Reading“While assessing the details of the Rhode Island lawsuit, we went back and read the prospectus for the state’s latest bond offering, dated April 3, 2018. Nowhere in the 25-page section on the economics of Rhode Island was there mention of economic risk from the climate damages the state alleges.”
“‘Send money’ seems to be the message. We wondered how the Defendants could stop from committing the acts they are accused of without stopping their sales of oil and gas products in the state. That would send the state back to an economy and society when Roger Williams founded Rhode Island.”
From sea to shining sea, the climate change movement is cranking up its legal actions against oil companies. The latest comes from the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation.…
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