CERAWeek 2009: Why Didn’t Daniel Yergin Question Climate Alarmism–and Both Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxation?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 15, 2009 2 Comments

At the just-completed CERAWeek, here in Houston, Daniel Yergin had an excellent opportunity to inject some scholarly realism into the climate-change debate. As a wise man of energy and an opinion leader, he could have stated publicly what many in the vast audience mutter privately, such as:

1. Global warming has stalled in the last decade or more, bringing into question the high-sensitivity, high-warming scenarios of climate models (the major costs of climate change)
2. Cap-and-trade CO₂ reduction in the European Union has failed under a variety of metrics–deadweight costs, higher prices, very little gain, unintended consequences
3. U.S. voters have put climate-change at the very bottom of their list of concerns and affordable energy high on their list of concerns
4. What emerges from Congress in the next several years will be grotesque–almost regulation and higher energy costs for its own sake (with no appreciable effect on climate).

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Dynegy, Coal, and Two Takes at the Houston Chronicle

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 11, 2009 3 Comments

Today’s Houston Chronicle has two takes on the recent decision by hometown Dynegy to pull back from participating in the construction of new coal plants and concentrate on expanding capacity at its existing plants.…

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