This week, a Hall of Shame business memo turns a quarter-century old. Dated December 12, 1997, it was written from Kyoto, Japan, by Enron lobbyist John Palmisano in the afterglow of the Kyoto Protocol agreement.

Global green planners were euphoric that, somehow, someway, the world had embarked on an irreversible course of climate control (and thus industrial and land-use control). But Kyoto predictably failed, and the Paris climate accord of 2015 teeters, with COP27’s recent failure making COP28’s prospects look grim.

Palmisano’s memo cites the benefits for first-mover ‘green’ Enron. Enron, in fact, had no less than six profit centers tied to pricing carbon dioxide (CO2)–and seven if CO2 were capped and traded. The story of Enron as the darling of Left environmentalists has been well told elsewhere.…

My LinkedIn account was reinstated, so I must be extra polite and stay scholarly with my politically incorrect, intellectually defensible views. Wish me luck! (below)

At LinkedIn, I have vigorously but politely engaged critics in the energy/climate debate with both posts and comments. LinkedIn, by way of background, is a business/employment online service owned by Microsoft. Started in 2003, the social media site involves 830 million professionals from more than 200 countries and territories, according to Wiki.

In the last year, I upgraded my LinkedIn membership and began following dozens of organizations with differing views (United Nations Environmental, Climate Professionals, etc.). I have 2,600 followers and have attracted several thousand views to some of my posts. Given that some of these post are picked up by the mega-site WUWT, the world’s most viewed website, this is good reach.…

[Ed. note: On August 27, 1997, the Cato Institute published Policy Analysis #280, which criticized the government push to subsidize politically correct renewable energies. This review by Jon Boone, published ten years ago, is reprinted below.

“The policy implication of [a thorough examination of renewable technologies] is, stop throwing good money after bad. All renewable energy subsidies from all levels of government should cease.”

Such is the conclusion voiced today by a rising chorus of energy experts, economists, even politicians, after many years of failed renewables projects and more expensive utility bills in the growing shadow of a $16 trillion national debt ($140,000 per taxpayer). But, remarkably, fifteen years have passed since Rob Bradley crafted this statement for the Cato Institute as the bottom line of his comprehensive six-part policy alarum, Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’

An Opening Shot

Few knew about or shared Bradley’s concerns at the time.…

“Bad Profits, rent-seeking, resource misallocation–it’s an upside down world, turning Ayn Rand’s dis-utopian world in Atlas Shrugged into reality one step at a time.”

“Manchin-Schumer leaves no special interest unrewarded,” wrote Robert Bryce. “The legislation is so broad and has so many carve outs that it has been lauded by Exxon Mobil and the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

The new law’s “lollipops” (Bryce) go to wind, solar, EVs, ethanol, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen–all money losers on a real free market. Bad Profits, rent-seeking, resource misallocation–it’s an upside down world, turning Ayn Rand’s dis-utopian world in Atlas Shrugged into reality one step at a time.

It is a sad day when ExxonMobil, once a bastion of climate and energy realism and good business, goes all-in with the Inflation Reduction Act
of 2022.…