Daren Bakst posted this at  http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/.  It is reposted here with his permission.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has decided to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the FWS, the loss of sea ice threatens the polar bear’s habitat.

As much as the FWS and the Secretray of the Interior Dick Kempthorne try to stress that the ESA is not intended to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, this agency decision opens up the door for such regulation. From the FWS press release:

“In making the announcement today, Secretary Kempthorne reiterated President Bush’s statement last month that the ESA was never intended to regulate global climate change. ‘Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources,’ said Kempthorne. ‘That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S.climate policy.’”
That’s nice in theory, but the door has been opened–it has been opened by Secretary Kempthorne.

I haven’t studied this late breaking development, and am stil trying to figure out what it all means. One thing is clear: This is a victory for global warming hysteria.

BTW: The number of polar bears has increased from about 5,000-10,000 in the 50s and 60’s to 20,000-25,000 today. I wonder why Secretary Kempthorne didn’t mention this little fact.

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Recently, in response to some John Locke Foundation mailers sent to various fans of the organization who have either moved or ceased their interest, we got two, count them two, letters from a company out of Durham, called Self-Help, requesting that we take two gentlemen off our mailing list. They stated:

Dear Marketing/Circulation Associate,

Our organiation has become increasingly concerned about the amount of waste we generate each day and the subsequent environmental impact. We select products with reduced and/or recyclable packaging, and recycle whatever materials we can. We realized that after all our efforts in reducing waste, we are still discarding large amounts of unwarrented mail as well as unsolicited catalogs. It is our intent to to be part of the solution, not part of the problem [Emphasis mine].

In this spirit, we respectfully request that you remove the attached name(s) from your mailing list, as this person(s) is no longer employed by Self-Help.

Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
[Self-Help]
Administrative Services Coordinator

Besides the litany of good enviromental deeds done by said Self-Help, and the absurb pseudo-religious terminology of “in this spirit,” one can only ponder if the best way to fight junk mail is with more junk mail? Cannot they be joyous in the fact that they didn’t fall into the same sin that we did, “Bless me O Lord that I am not like those polluters.” But they did. I guess picking up the phone and calling must add to one’s personal CO2 emissions…

It is funny that even holier-than-thou environmentalists fall into the old false maxim of the lesser of two evils. Pity.

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It strikes me as curious how ardently people will criticize a power company for building a coal-fired power plant in their community and yet hail the construction of a chicken litter-fired power plant as if it is the greatest thing that’s ever happened.

So what’s the difference between the two?  Well, the most notable difference is that burning poultry litter emits more of every one of the EPA’s criteria pollutants.

So why would you build a “renewable” energy source that is even dirtier than coal?  To start with, it’s now required by law.  Fibrowatt, a leading rent-seeker in the SB3 stakeholder negotiations, essentially guaranteed themselves a monopoly market in which consumers would be required to buy their product.

Does that sound like a violation of freedom?  Of course it is, but its a violation that people rally behind.  After all, it’s “renewable.”

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I may be a little behind on this issue, but I heard about it the other day and felt that something should be posted on it.

A new threshold (that had to be regarded as inevitable) has now been crossed in the academic community with regard to climate change policy. This threshold now carries the enviro-socialist movement from a latent, passive-aggressive attitude toward the human existence to an overt disdain for human beings.

Dr. Barry Walters, professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia, is now calling for the Australian government to implement a mandatory carbon tax on parents who have more than two children. For each additional child, there would be a $5,000-plus tax at birth and an annual $800 tax for the life of the child. The new baby taxes would go to offset the additional carbon dioxide that the child would emit over its lifetime.

However, Australian residents could earn a “carbon-tax credit” if they undergo a sterilization procedure.

Here are Dr. Walters own words:

Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society.

Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a ‘baby levy’ in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

Apparently, procreation is the newest form of “pollution” that should be regulated by government, with the “offenders” being punished for this horrific act.

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I just saw that the state’s first commercial wind power plant has been approved by the NC Utilities Commission.  The approval is conditional on Carteret County lifting its current moratorium on wind turbine construction, approval from the FAA, and siting tests to measure the strength and frequency of the wind at its proposed location.

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In this ridiculous article by Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post today, she decries the subversive influence of Southeastern states in the battle to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. The article is misleadingly entitled “Southeast counteracts efforts to reduce air pollution” and discusses the potential negative effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.

Nowhere is there any clarification that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (nevermind a discussion of the potential positive impacts of carbon dioxide emissions such as increased vegetation, longer growing seasons, and improvements in human health). Nor is there any clarification over the fact that air quality, in the Southeast and elsewhere, has improved markedly over the past few decades and continues to improve. Instead, there is only the implication that carbon dioxide, essential to life on earth, represents a direct threat to human health.

Eilperin calls for Southeastern states to follow the lead of Northern and some Western states that are eliminating “policies that encourage people to move out to the suburbs in pursuit of larger homes and bigger backyards.” She continues to rally for policymakers that “are pushing aggressively to increase urban density and discourage the use of private cars.” In other words, she is calling for “smart-growth” policies that allow the government to dictate where and how people can live - placing severe limits on individual liberty.

Eilperin continues to specifically decry North Carolina policies that allocate more government revenue for road construction than for public rail transit. She further attacks Raleigh as being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions through urban sprawl that has increased commuter distances.

A major concern with transit-centered smart-growth strategies that Eilperin refuses to address is that such a use of government revenue benefits a wealthy urban elite at the expense of the rural poor. The rural poor receive no benefit in terms of transportation accessibility from urban transit that they would be required to partially finance if the resources are drawn from the General Fund.

In addition, the effect of smart-growth style land-use restrictions is to increase the scarcity of land that can be used for development, thereby driving up the price of that land. This rewards land owners and puts ownership out of the reach of many low-income families.

The type of policies that Eilperin is openly advocating for in this article should demonstrate two points very clearly. The first is that because everything that we do generates carbon dioxide (including the simple act of just breathing), when carbon dioxide emissions are regulated, the government is able to regulate every aspect of life - ending individual liberty and laying the seeds for a tyrannical police state. Second, policy measures designed to address carbon dioxide emissions are nearly always regressive. To further the agenda a wealthy elite, they will hurt not only the poor in this country, but as has been seen with ethanol policy, when these policies affect world markets, they have the potential to starve and kill the poorest people in the world. Even Paul Krugman admits this. Advocates of such policies appear more than willing to cause a certain disaster of this sort in order to stave off the onset of a poorly-understood, “potential disaster.”

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This article that appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times yesterday warns North Carolinians about the (almost certain) possibility that:

Western North Carolina could see more bad air-quality days this summer as a result of a new federal standard, officials said Tuesday.
Changes to the national ambient air quality standards that took effect in March lowered the amount of ozone, the primary component of smog, that it takes to make the air unhealthy for sensitive groups.

In fact, the EPA’s new standard does not mean that air quality will be worse this year nor does it mean that the amount of ozone that would make the air unhealthy for sensitive groups is lower. These two claims refer to objective standards about air quality. What has happened is that the EPA has lowered its subjective standard which is supposed to infer these things.

Ground-level ozone concentrations have actually been substantially reduced over the last few decades and continues to improve. As a result, air quality is continually increasing and not decreasing. Reports such as this give an inaccurate impression to the reader.

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Check out Steven Hayward’s column in the Wall Street Journal detailing how unrealistic an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 would be. Apparently, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have endorsed this policy goal, with John McCain calling for a 65% reduction over the same time period. Hayward points out that per capita CO2 emissions have never been that low in this country - even prior to the burning of coal.

What is worth pointing out is that at the most recent hearing of the North Carolina Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change, committee members mentioned using the same 80% goal as an “aspirational goal” for North Carolina climate change policies to achieve. Here’s to lower standards of living than the pilgrims had - right here in North Carolina!

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Our friend Ken Green at AEI was inspired by the current food crisis to take to song writing.

Big Yellow Lobby

by Kenneth P. Green

Resident Scholar

American Enterprise Institute

(With apologies to Joni Mitchell)

They paved paradise
And built a bunch of a biofuel plants!
Making ethanol fuel using coal
On their government grants!

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone!
They paved paradise
And put up ugly biofuel plants!

Then they cut down all the trees
And planted lots of biofuel crops!
Now the fertilizer runoff is
Causing giant ocean dead spots!

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone!
They ploughed paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants!

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that subsidy now!
Just grow the corn for tortillas
And leave me some pesos for cheese
Please!

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone!
They ploughed paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants!

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam.
And a big yellow lobby
Took cheap food away.

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone!
They paved paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants!

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Yesterday I attended a hearing of the North Carolina Committee on Global Climate Change where David Tuerck, Ph.D. economist and Executive Director of the Beacon Hill Institute, presented a cost-benefit analysis that Beacon Hill performed of North Carolina’s proposed climate change policies.

Dr. Tuerck’s comments followed directly after a presentation from a graduate student at ASU’s Energy Center, who performed the Energy Center’s “cost-benefit analysis.” Among the assumptions built into the Energy Center’s model that he explicitly admitted to was an assumption of “no supply-side restrictions.” Hence, the model assumes that there is an infinite unused supply of labor and capital in North Carolina that is waiting to be employed. (Of course, this is untrue. Any resources shifted to one sector would necessarily be drawn from another, more efficient sector of the economy.) This assumption is vital to another of the stated assumptions - that there would be a Keynesian multiplier effect. Because these assumptions were made in the analysis, the Energy Center was able to predict a boost in manufacturing due to climate change policies and that overall employment in North Carolina would increase as a result of these policies.

However, Beacon Hill’s peer review highlights these and other major weaknesses of the Energy Center’s model and goes on to show that North Carolina would lose 33,000 jobs and lose $4.5 billion in Gross State Product by 2011. What’s more is that Beacon Hill’s analysis examines only the 9 most costly of the 56 policy options recently proposed by the North Carolina Climate Action Plan Advisory Group (CAPAG).

Despite the strength of Dr. Tuerck’s analysis and presentation, he received several vexing questions from committee members who clearly did not have a thorough understanding of the issues at hand.

One committee member asked where North Carolina’s “competitive advantage” is, asserting that it was no longer in manufacturing. (Of course, the answer is that it is determined by the market and that it changes over time. Also, it is never an absolute advantage in production that is important in trade theory, it is always the relative or “comparative advantage.” Notably - he had described himself as a fellow economist prior to his line of questioning.) After a roundabout manner of questioning the member then asserted that North Carolina’s competitive advantage was in creative capital and that funneling resources into research and development for new technologies would in fact spur more jobs for North Carolina.

When told by Dr. Tuerck that this could be true, but that it would come at the expense of new technologies in private markets, the committee member responded that utilities operate in a regulated market and that private competitors cannot compete to create new technologies in energy markets. I found this particularly amusing because the second presenter on the day had been from a private company that developed new technologies in energy production and then sold those technologies to utilities. I guess he missed that one.

Another committee member noted that air quality, in the past, has vastly improved due to environmental regulations. This is true, yet he failed to grasp that it is a trade-off between increased regulation and economic prosperity (which is left as a policy decision). Also, CO2 emissions have nothing to do with air quality - CO2 is required for life on earth.

Finally, in my favorite comment, climate change was compared to Adolph Hitler. Seriously. While we see it looming, if we refuse to do anything about it before it is too late, we will meet our doom. Signs that the earth may be warming are like the pro-war posters that were hung prior to our entrance into World War II, serving to remind us of that potentially fatal truth. This committee member saw it as our duty to what we can to address climate change now.

My only response is that there were options available at the time to actually stop Hitler. Nothing that could reasonably done now would have any measurable effect on climate change. Big difference. (There are also major questions as to whether a return to a warmer climate would even be a bad thing - it could actually be quite beneficial for humans.) What proposed climate change policies in North Carolina clearly will do, however, is stifle the economy and particularly punish the poorest citizens in this state. But then, they could apparently also stave off the Holocaust.

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