Moloney's World: Sense and nonsense on energy

Editor: Our columnist Bill Moloney is more influential than we dreamed. In this piece, written a week ago for Bob Beauprez's website, he took McCain to school on offshore drilling among other issues. Within days the GOP nominee had pivoted and was endorsing, that's right, offshore drilling. Here is the Moloney piece. ==============================

The 18th century lexicographer Samuel Johnson famously remarked that the prospect of being hanged in the morning “concentrates the mind wonderfully”. Gasoline at $4.00 a gallon should be a similar spur to clear thinking about U.S. energy policy.

This however is not anywhere the case. Listening to Obama vs. McCain on energy sounds eerily like Carter vs. Ford in 1976.

Similarly clueless is the Congress where “new ideas” consist of jacking up the insane ethanol subsidy or the equally deranged impulse to impose a “windfall profits” tax on these “greedy” oil corporations.

Meanwhile President Bush is begging our “great ally” Saudi Arabia for a little discount oil. The Saudis-contemptuously- didn’t even wait for Bush to get home before delivering a resounding “No” and giving him a patronizing lecture on market economics, to boot.

So what explains this world class obtuseness regarding energy?

The reason lies in a thoroughly bi-partisan “conspiracy” to impose on our people a “Myth Agreed Upon”, i.e. that certain energy options are so inherently wicked that they cannot even be seriously discussed much less done.

Senator Harry Reid recently gave a speech entitled “America Needs More Oil”. Despite this breath-taking insight he was unable to articulate the obvious solution to the problem he had so cleverly identified: Immediately authorize a rapid expansion of off-shore drilling and the building of new refineries to accommodate the resulting immense increase in new petroleum.

Do this and gas prices will plummet and the stock market will surge tow roping the entire U. S. economy in a dramatic upswing.

This, won’t happen because thirty years ago a nasty oil spill off Santa Barbara led to a chain reaction of environmental scare-mongering- images of little children swimming in black sludge and the imminent death of all the pretty little sea birds- that resulted in California banning all new offshore drilling anywhere within the 200 mile limit- a colossally dumb policy move that nonetheless was imitated by virtually every other state with a shoreline.

Politicians of both parties still slavishly defend the wisdom, and “environmental sensitivity” of these decisions which retrospectively constitute one of the greatest self-inflicted wounds in U.S. history. Mindlessly they do so while willfully ignoring the following facts:

A- 460 % increase in gas prices;

B- extraordinary advances in off-shore drilling technology ;

C- Norway and other nations routinely and safely extract large quantities of undersea oil;

D- Before long Florida boaters will be able to wave to Chinese technicians zealously sucking up “black gold” within Cuban territorial waters almost within sight of Miami; and

E -most astoundingly- despite gushers of political rhetoric damning the “tyranny of our dependence on foreign oil”, and rivers of crocodile tears shed on behalf of the “poor American consumer” we continue to do business with people who don’t like us, overcharge us, sponsor terrorism against us and cause us to utterly warp the economic and political landscape of our nation through periodic and hugely counterproductive military adventures in the Middle East.

The flipside of the great energy myth is the near unshakeable taboo against nuclear power. Here the unspeakable but unanswerable question is : How come France can get nearly 40% of their total energy needs from nuclear plants- the cleanest and cheapest power source in history- and nobody bats an eye, but even hint at such an option for the U.S. and you are accused of wanting everybody’s children to glow in the dark. Getting a constitutional amendment raising the voting age to thirty would be easy compared to getting a permit for a new nuclear power plant.

Having ruled out the only two intelligent options liberals promote inane discussions about wind, solar, hybrids, ethanol, tripling the gasoline tax, trading in our SUVs for bicycles, and other economically laughable schemes.

Simple-minded environmentalism has entered into an unholy alliance with the junk science called “global warming” and morphed into a new secular religion for liberals. The old Red Menace of hare-brained Marxism has been replaced by the new Green Menace of crack-brained planet worship. Anyone doubting this didn’t hear the most interesting line in Obama’s speech claiming the Democratic nomination: “and the oceans shall recede, and the Planet shall begin to heal”.

At last, really new thinking on energy policy from St. Barack, High Priest of the earth goddess GAIA!

Anyone still doubt there’s a lot at stake next November 4th?

Green Left seduces the Rockefellers

Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, John D. Rockefeller’s corporate progeny, shrugged off greenie attacks by the Rockefeller heirs and fired back. Here's the latest from Canada. There are two things Coloradans should keep in mind about this developing story: 1) Unlike CEO James Mulva of our soon-to-be-neighbor in Broomfield, ConocoPhillips, Tillerson and Exxon Mobil haven’t knuckled under to the global warming hysteria (fraud and hoax are other words that come to mind) that’s all the rage these days.

2) Through the work of “climate czarina” Heidi VanGenderen and others, Gov. Ritter has Colorado in the grip of the same Rockefeller crowd who are nipping at Tillerson’s posterior at Exxon Mobil.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund supports an outfit called the Center for Climate Strategies , CCS, which I understand to be, among other things, a self-styled manager/facilitator (puppeteer?) seductively providing resources at no charge mainly to states to “[enable] deliberative democracy” in policy development addressing climate change. However, it appears the only climate change of interest to CCS is anthropogenic global warming (if any), and CCS’s skillful control of agendas leads in only one direction: drastically reduced carbon emissions. Some deliberative democracy (the term used in its mission statement).

In Colorado’s case, a climate action plan was reportedly developed with CCS guidance by another nonprofit, something called the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, RMCO. State climate (read, global warming) action plans engineered by CCS are usually the product of a “Climate Change Advisory Council” (do a Web search on that term, and you’ll see what I mean) appointed directly or indirectly by the governor; the RMCO work might be seen as more “independent,” but I believe that’s a distinction with little difference. A report in the Rocky 11/6/07 seems to confirm what I have learned from other sources, that the Ritter/VanGenderen climate action plan is the RMCO product with some minor variations.

Ominously, RMCO is hand-in-hand with the Natural Resources Defense Council. A major report on warming in the west featured on RMCO’s Website is shown to be the product of both organizations. A recent George Will column noted, “Today's ‘green left’ is the old ‘red left’ revised.” It would be hard to find an organization closer to the heart of the green left for the past 35 years than the NRDC.

Investor’s Business Daily had it right in this 5/29 editorial about Exxon Mobil in contrast to British Petroleum -- and one could add ConocoPhillips, Xcel and dozens of others that have drunk Al Gore’s koolaid. IBD’s comment about the endless ads “touting capitulation to the global warming religion” reminds me of Xcel’s ad about the Coors Field solar array and its Gee Whiz! 14,000 KWH per year. By comparison, the Palo Verde nuclear plant west of Phoenix generates 14,000 KWH in about 13 seconds.

Might one be unduly cynical to suggest that political correctness is the only thing standing between Xcel and nuclear-electric power advocacy?

Hillary mouthing Marxist myths

Hillary Clinton keeps advocating a “gas tax holiday” paid for by “big oil companies” out of their “record profits." Excuse me, Senator, but you have it all wrong in saying we need to "take on" those companies. The nation’s problem is not Big Oil and its alleged record profits, but lack of supply. But when you have outfits like the Sierra Club opposing any kind of drilling at the top of their lungs and with huge propaganda budgets, we wind up with a policy of NDAAAT or "Endat" -- No Drilling Anywhere At Any Time. More supply would bring down profits and prices as a matter of course, but the progressives will have none of it.

But let's look at the root belief behind Clinton's self-defeating policy recommendations. The left-wing progressives have what can only be considered an “agrarian view” of wealth. Like farmland, as they see it, wealth is fixed and indestructible. The crops grow and produce income, which also is fixed, and can be taken for granted. Therefore, the grand task is to redistribute the income and “eliminate poverty." What person of good will would not want to confiscate the farm land from the greedy parasitic land owners who do nothing but ride around in their carriages and cane their tenant farmers?

Trouble is, this was not even a good theory when it was formulated by Karl Marx in 1848; it certainly doesn’t fit an information age economy of the 21st Century.

These days, free markets can create wealth that expands or contracts with confidence or lack of confidence. Take Microsoft for example. When Bill Gates took Microsoft public, his founders stock suddenly made him a wealthy man! But the progressives believe in the Labor Value Theory which states that all wealth is the product of someone’s labor (such as planting and harvesting the crops in the 1848 model). Therefore, profits and wealth can only be exploitation of someone else, and are therefore bad. Therefore, Bill Gates’s wealth is something he should be ashamed of.

This is of course utter nonsense. The wealth creation, jobs, and supporting industries created by Microsoft are a great source of well being for our society as a whole! But the progressives, stuck in the 1840’s, don’t get it! They would like to kill Bill Gates and confiscate his wealth and redistribute it.

Okay, say we do this. Bill Gates is arrested and shot, and the Government announces it will now confiscate every share of Microsoft! What happens to the market price for MSFT? It will go to zero! So the government now has all the outstanding shares of Microsoft, ( 1 or 2 billion?). It redistributes those to every citizen in the country. Now everyone has 10 shares of Microsoft, but they are worthless, good for only toilet paper! Microsoft and the jobs and supporting industries all collapse and the economy contracts! But you can count on the progressives to blame everyone but themselves for the economic malaise.

Too bad the Democrats have put up Marxist lawyers as candidates instead of those who understand how a modern economy works.

Why is Gingrich fronting for Gore?

"The climate crisis is both urgent and solvable [so] our ultimate aim is halt global warming," proclaims an Al Gore website and ad campaign. But conservatives, among whom former Speaker Newt Gingrich proudly counts himself, believe hardly a single word of that statement. So it's hard to fathom why Gingrich is appearing in TV spots with Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi, promoting the campaign. In a damage control letter, Newt claims he is merely trying to engage the climate debate and keep the right relevant, without granting the left's premise "that we have conclusive proof of global warming [or] that humans are at the center of it."

He insists his purpose in doing the ads with Pelosi is to advance "a Green Conservatism that wants to use science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurs, and prizes to find a way to creatively invent the kind of environmental future we all want to live in."

Sorry, but that sounds like moonshine to me. The sum total of Gingrich's message on these cheesy spots, showing the past and present Speakers seated like couch potatoes in front of the US Capitol (similar to an equally horrid beach sofa scene with the Revs. Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton, God help us) is this:

"Our country must take action to address climate change. If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need."

But why, Newt, pray tell, "must our country take action" on something which, according your off-camera spin lacks conclusive proof as to its very existence, let alone its human cause? And how can your Green Conservatism get any hearing whatsoever from WeCanSolveIt.org, the Gore-led website to which Nancy directs us at the close of the ad?

The site offers no "spark the innovation" option at all. Gingrich disciples who go there will find that "demand action from our leaders" translates to a rigged three-part agenda: (1) Sign the petition for a global treaty on climate change, Son of Kyoto. (2) Ask lenders to consider climate impact when funding new coal plants, a concession to precisely that "left-wing environmentalism" which Newt's letter, shown below, condemns. And (3) Urge the press to ask about global warming. Right, we sure need more of that; just so the theory's validity isn't asked about.

Newt Gingrich has long been a hero to many of us for, among many other notable achievements, tagging the word "nutty" onto things that liberals like naked emperors had always gotten away with before. How sad to see him (and poor old Pat Robertson) now standing at the summit of -- or should we say sitting on the sofa of -- nuttiness themselves.

I asked Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, which convened the recent Manhattan conference of prestigious scientific skeptics about global warming, what he makes of the Republican ex-Speaker's strange odyssey to the land of melting polar caps. Bast replied:

Newt Gingrich was once an important figure in the conservative movement, but his appearance in advertisements run by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection confirms what many conservatives have been saying for quite awhile: Gingrich is no longer a conservative. His views on environment and even health care no longer are based on sound science, private property rights, and market-based solutions, but instead spread and stray into territory mostly traveled by alarmists and liberals. It’s a surprise, because very few conservatives “go over to the other side” (whereas it is common among liberals). It’s disappointing, too, because Gingrich is undeniably a clever man and forceful communicator. We can only hope it is a phase he’s going through, and be prepared to welcome him back to the fold if ever he wakes up and smells the coffee.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I especially liked that "Newt come home" appeal at the end. Let's hope he does. Brain cooling on Planet Gingrich can't set in soon enough. For the record, here's the Newt Gingrich spin statement, as read on air by Rush Limbaugh, April 24:

Many of you have written to me to ask why I recently taped an advertisement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for The Alliance for Climate Protection, a group founded by former Vice President Al Gore. I completely understand why many of you would have questions about this, so I want to take this opportunity to explain my reasons. First of all, I want to be clear: I don't think that we have conclusive proof of global warming. And I don't think we have conclusive proof that humans are at the center of it.

But here's what we do know. There is an important debate going on right now over the right energy policy, the right environmental policy, and making sure we do the right things for our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. Conservatives are missing from this debate, and I think that's a mistake. When it comes to preserving our environment for future generations, we can't have a slogan of 'Just yell no!' I have a different view. I think it's important to be on the stage, to engage in the debate, and to communicate our position clearly.

There is a big difference between left-wing environmentalism that wants higher taxes, bigger government, more bureaucracy, more regulation, more red tape, and more litigation and a Green Conservatism that wants to use science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurs, and prizes to find a way to creatively invent the kind of environmental future we all want to live in. Unless we start making the case for the latter, we're going to get the former. That's why I took part in the ad.

Maybe that convinces you, but to me it's about as plausible as a weight-loss infomercial. Sad, sad. Sad.

Propagandizing the climate debate

Some Americans, principally on the Left, are understating the threat of terrorism while overstating the hyperbolized threat of man-made global warming Editor: I'm pleased to introduce a new contributor, our youngest, to the Backbone blog.  Jimmy Sengenberger of Centennial, Colorado, is a senior at Grandview High School, active in local Republican politics, and a columnist for The Villager, a suburban weekly, from which this piece is reprinted.  Apropos his comments about skewed treatment of climate issues in the schools, Heartland Institute's environmental newspaper this month has several stories about educational malpractice in that regard by California middle schools.  See the lead article and three others at this link.  Now here's the Sengenberger column in full.

Global Warming Debate Hotter than It Looks

Since the founding of this nation, we have been faced with numerous tests of time. Islamic terrorism is the gravest threat facing this nation since the Soviet Union, and yet, as the War on Terror rages on, some Americans, principally on the Left, are understating the threat of terrorism while overstating the hyperbolized threat of man-made global warming, or what they’re now calling “global climate change,” as if the concept were something new.

The inconvenient truth for Al Gore, who claims that climate change is the “most dangerous challenge we’ve ever faced,” and other global warming alarmists is that there is substantial scientific evidence that at the very least establishes a stronger correlation between natural factors, principally water vapor and the variations in solar flares and sun spots, and increases in global temperature.

Yet those who are skeptical of global warming and express that skepticism are often attacked, belittled and marginalized. No longer can there be serious debate about the issue in the public sphere because politicians, environmentalists and educators have made up their minds. Disagree with global warming? You’re denying fact, what is already “settled science.” You are, in the words of an otherwise phenomenal teacher of mine, a “moron.”

The basic premise of global warming revolves around the greenhouse effect, which is the rise in the Earth’s temperature as the result of certain gases in the atmosphere, called “greenhouse gases,” which trap energy from the sun. The temperature has generally risen over the last century and a half, and so have carbon dioxide levels.

We are indeed in the midst of a warming period following the Little Ice Age, which lasted from the 1500s to about 1850, and it is true that over the last three decades the rate of warming has increased. Greenhouse theory advocates look at the correlation between the rise in CO2 emissions and the rising temperature and conclude that the former causes the latter. Most scientists will tell you, however, that correlation does not prove causation.

There are several problems with the man-made theory that are easily overlooked by global warming alarmists. Unfortunately at this point I cannot elaborate on these problems due to length, but in my next column I will address both flaws in the greenhouse theory, which include holes in the theory relating to the collision of CO2 and other molecules in the atmosphere and the inaccuracy of computer climate models used to predict climate change, and alternative explanations for our planet’s warming over the last century, such as the evidence of natural phenomena that have been occurring for at least a million years. For now, however, I will address two points: the concept of a “scientific consensus” and education in schools.

Man-made theory advocates often bring up the argument that there is a “scientific consensus” that man is the cause of global warming. This is, at the very least, disingenuous, as a growing number of climatologists, geologists, paleontologists, and other scientists are raising questions about the science as more evidence shows up. These scientists, who simply do not get enough publicity because their ideas are not in line with the media elite, bring up such issues as the 1500-year climate cycle going back one million years; the substantial correlation between the sun and global climate throughout history; the notion that, while carbon emissions increased, global cooling occurred between 1940 and 1980; and the fact that the climate models used to predict climate trends are inaccurate (pointing out, for instance, that they can’t even predict past climate conditions) and there is an alternative, scientific way to test the models.

However, even if there were an actual scientific consensus, it would mean little. In the past the world believed the earth was flat and at the center of the universe. Men like Galileo challenged and, in doing so, changed the conventional wisdom, and others like Albert Einstein challenged the majoritarian view and were proven successful as well. Pointing to a “consensus” in science is counterproductive; what we need to look at is the actual science, not the number of scientists who are saying one thing or another.

A student at a local high school told me that he had been shown Al Gore’s propaganda film, "An Inconvenient Truth" during two days of class time. Following the movie, which lasted over an hour and a half, they read an article lasting a page and a half that showed a global warming skeptic’s view and had to write a summary about it.

Education is about the presentation of different ideas on varying issues to form a balanced and complete opinion, yet when it comes to global warming, fairness goes out the door and it becomes “indisputable.” Considering the contradictory evidence about global warming, shouldn’t teachers be teaching students the complete picture? Shouldn’t the media give global warming skeptics a fair shake? Shouldn’t our elected leaders keep their minds open before changing policy when the science isn’t concrete?

Given the legitimate questions raised about the science of global warming and recent evidence disputing the concept of man-made warming, serious debate on the public policy behind the issue needs to take place; the issue must return outside of politics, where it belongs. Yet how can that happen when the science is in dispute, and those who dispute the science are marginalized?

This is not an issue where we can rush to judgment and rashly determine that government intervention is necessary.