“No matter whose carbon dioxide emissions estimate is used, the climate impact of the oil transported by the pipeline is too small to measure or carry any physical significance. In deciding the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, it is important not to let symbolism cloud these facts.” [1]
Climate change results from a variety of factors, both human and natural. The primary concern raised over the pipeline involves the carbon dioxide emissions that will result from the production and use of the oil that the pipeline will carry. It is the potential climate change from these emissions that will be the focus of my testimony.
In its Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the State Department finds, and I think that there is broad agreement on this point, that a barrel of oil produced from the Canadian tar sands carries about a 17 percent carbon dioxide emissions premium compared to the average barrel of oil finding its way into the U.S.…
Continue Reading“The ‘bait’ for legislators is each gets to ‘bring home the bacon’ in the form of rebate checks to voters and huge new tax revenues for the federal government…. The ‘switch’ … is to propose baby steps for the first 10 years [versus what will be necessary] … in the out years.”
The “Climate Protection Act” (House) and Sustainable Energy Act” (Senate), are the latest, and perhaps the most onerous, in a series of legislative proposals that seek to tap the immense revenue stream promised by taxing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel burning.
So-called Boxer-Sanders will neither “protect” the climate nor protect consumers and taxpayers despite its start-small provisions and gentle rhetoric.
Bait …
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, recently signed on as a co-sponsor of Sen.…
Continue Reading“From all signs, the wind-energy field has reached that all-important turning point.”
– C. Flavin, Wind Power: A Turning Point (Worldwatch Institute: July 1981), p. 47.
Christopher Flavin, long associated with the Washington, DC-based Worldwatch Institute (see appendix below), was among the most thoughtful and prolific energy writer in the neo-Malthusian energy/environmentalist camp. His tone was positive, his writing clear, and his research well documented. Flavin’s work is scholarly compared to his (shrill) predecessor, Lester Brown, the founder of WorldWatch. Still, Flavin’s final products are little more than lawyer briefs for energy/climate alarmism.
Flavin is now paying the price for assuming alarmism to hype market-incorrect energies. He banked on wind and solar as primary energies despite the fact that they were dilute, intermittent, and environmentally invasive. Flavin pretty much forgot his early caution and warnings about windpower (see his introduction to Paul Gipe’s Windpower Comes of Age).…
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