A Free-Market Energy Blog

Don’t Divest, Educate–An Open Letter to American Universities

By -- June 11, 2013

“What we ask for is a more rigorous education on energy and environmental issues. Today’s students do not learn even basic facts about the energy sources that make our civilization possible. But they are encouraged to take strong policy positions on the basis of extremely speculative predictions by individuals and institutions who falsely claim to represent the conclusions of all informed scientists.”

Dear American Universities,

You have no doubt heard the calls by certain environmentalist groups for you to publicly divest your endowments of any investments in the fossil fuel industry. We ask that you reject these calls as an attempt to silence legitimate debate about our energy and environmental future.

The leaders of the divestment movement say it is not debatable that the fossil fuel industry is “Public Enemy Number One”—that it deserves to be publicly humiliated by having America’s leading educational institutions single it out for divestment.…

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Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Operations: EPA’s Continuing, Conscious Overestimate

By Katie Brown -- June 10, 2013

“As long as the EPA continues to rely on assumptions about industry activity that are not, in fact, based on actual industry activity, their estimates for methane emissions will remain wrong. The fact that those assumptions result in inflated emissions estimates makes the agency’s conscious decision not to adjust its methods even more troubling.”

Last month, the EPA released its latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory, in which the agency significantly lowered its estimate of the amount of methane emissions from natural gas systems. But even with those dramatic revisions, EPA still has a long way to go to get this right.

In its fact sheet about its changes to methane emissions estimates, EPA admits that at least some of its prior methods for collecting emissions data were flawed:

The study data show that there is more widespread use of emissions control technologies than had been assumed in the previous Inventory. 

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The Free Market Energy Movement: Strong Theory, Rich History, Real-World Momentum

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 7, 2013

“It’s not unlawful to run an ad hominem presidency. It’s merely shameful. The great rhetorical specialty of this president has been his unrelenting attribution of bad faith to those who disagree with him. He acts on principle; they from the basest of instincts.”

– Charles Krauthammer, “There’s a Fly in My Soup,” Washington Post, May 23, 2013.

The alarmist/statist side of the energy/environmental debate is losing intellectually and now politically. The agenda of inferior energies simply cannot stand up to a combination of analytic failure, government failure, and real-world realities. The oil and gas boom … the cessation of global warming; improving air and water quality … alternative energy busts ….

And as the alarmists have become ever more argumentative and shrill, even (former) allies and sympathizers are seeing a quasi-religious, nonintellectual, even ugly aspect to the Climate Progress view of the world.…

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Revisiting Climategate as Climatism Falters

By Steve Goreham -- June 6, 2013
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Wind Forcing: New England’s Coming Energy War

By -- June 5, 2013
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Rex Tillerson (Exxon Mobil) on Climate Change (energy/climate realism trumps alarmism)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 4, 2013
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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter (June 3, 2013)

By -- June 3, 2013
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Rice’s Baker Institute Climate Embarrassment (Sass’s ad hominem response to Rep. Smith)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 31, 2013
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Beyond Furloughs: Ax EPA Climatism

By -- May 30, 2013
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Keystone XL Deserves a Presidential “Yes” (consumers, citizens, labor all in support)

By Mark Green -- May 29, 2013
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