Last week in the Huffington Post, climatologist Dr. James Hansen made an impassioned plea to President Obama to ditch cap-and-trade and instead advocate a plan to tax carbon-based fuels with 100% of the revenues returned to households. This was not the first time. Hansen made the same pitch back in December 2008 in a letter to President-elect Obama. President Obama did not heed Hansen’s advice, keeping his wagon hitched to cap-and-trade, the policy darling of Big Green, U.S. CAP, and congressional leaders. But with cap-and-trade bogged down on Capitol Hill, Hansen argues, his plan gives Obama “a second chance on the predominant moral issue of this century.”

Hansen made the case for “tax-and-dividend” in testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee on February 25, 2009. I commented on Hansen’s testimony a week later on MasterResource.…

Middle America has awakened, and its slogan appears to be “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  At least, that seems to be the meaning of the Tea Party movement and the recent elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia.

But other than being “mad as hell,” what are the Tea Party’s positions on issues such as the environment?

There is no simple answer to this question because there is no “Tea Party.”  There are, rather, a multitude of Tea Parties.  The Tea Party is a movement and not an organized, monolithic political party.  Tea Parties may support some candidates, and conservative candidates will claim they have Tea Party endorsement, but they will most likely be running as Republicans or Independents rather than as registered members of the Tea Party. …

[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).…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to effect a reduction in CO₂ releases in the U.S. by raising the required fuel economy standards for new cars in 2014 and again in 2016.  The current standard, now at 30.2 mpg for passenger cars (everything here is about passenger cars, the analysis of light trucks will have to wait) will rise to 35.5 mpg in 2016.

EPA claims that they used a carbon price of $21/tonne to establish the appropriate increase in fuel economy.  The EPA also claims that these standards will reduce CO₂ releases from the vehicle sector by 21%.  Well, at least they are not using the number 19.  This proposal will have a minute effect on CO₂ levels and is unlikely to come in at the very low or “negative” cost per tonne of CO₂ claimed by its proponents.…