“… new mileage standards will raise vehicle prices and may force the adoption of electric cars. But there is no evidence that the regulations will have a measurable effect on global temperatures.”

“[US EPA] Administrator Scott Pruitt launched a review of the strict mileage regulations from the Obama Administration. It’s long past time for a roll-back of obsolete US vehicle mileage regulations.”

Regulations to reduce fuel consumption and to increase vehicle mileage were born during the oil shock of the 1970s. But within the last decade, the fracking revolution reestablished the United States as the world’s energy superpower.

Are vehicle mileage standards now obsolete?

In October 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declared an oil embargo, targeting the United States and other nations. Within six months, the world price of petroleum quadrupled, from $3 to $12 per barrel.…

“Energy consumption is not a villain. Nations that consume the most energy per person discharge the lowest level of air and water pollutants per person. Low-cost energy provides economic growth and generates capital for pollution control.”

Editor note: Steve Goreham has written another primer of note. The author of Climatism!: Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic (2010) and The Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change (2012), Goreham has just published a fun, readable book with great political timing.

The audience for Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development is not only any classroom studying energy choices and related public policies. Goreham is targeting the green consultant. The back cover explains:

Your firm spends millions to be environmentally sustainable. Carbon credits, renewable energy, ethanol fuel, and electric vehicles demonstate your company’s commitment.

“The anti-fossil fuel environmental movement is in despair. For decades, proponents of the ideology of sustainable development preached that humanity was running out of oil and gas, that consumption of hydrocarbons was destroying the climate, and that renewable energy was rapidly becoming a cost-effective alternative. But the Shale Shock has slain peak oil and promises low-cost oil and gas for centuries to come.”

The world has changed. Although few yet understand it, the revolution in the production of oil and natural gas from shale has altered the course of global energy, affecting most of the world’s people. This is not a short-term event. Citizens, industries, and nations will be impacted for decades to come.

We are witnessing a modern energy miracle. For more than 30 years, US crude oil production fell from 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970 to 5 million barrels per day in 2008.…

[Editor Note: In light of the 5th anniversary of Climategate on November 19th, MasterResource proudly reposts Steve Gorham’s summary from last year, Revisiting Climategate as Climatism Falters. Good analysis becomes more valuable with the passage of time. This post, and Gorham’s book, The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism, pass this test.]

” … the real scandal was not so much that two or three climate scientists behaved badly, but that virtually the entire climate science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.”

– Paul Stephens, “Climategate Anniversary,” The IPCC Report, November 17, 2014.

Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate, is on the wane. Once riding high, the ideology of man-made climate change is losing its influence in governments across the world.…