Carlin Economics and Science

With emphasis on climate change

Government Promotion of “Green” Energy Has Now Become Even More Hopeless

Government intervention in the market should be the exception rather than the norm. Before government intervenes in any market there needs to be a clear justification based on whether there is a real market failure to be corrected and whether the benefits of regulation clearly exceed the costs. Promoting “green” energy ideology is not such

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The Total Unreality of Substituting Wind and Solar for Fossil Fuel Electricity

One of the crucial unrealistic assumptions of the climate alarmist narrative is the belief that non-hydro renewable sources of energy can be easily substituted for fossil fuels for the generation of electricity. Proponents pretend that this substitution is simple and mainly involves political will for governments to impose the changes, and occasionally that subsidies must

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Clinton Proposes to End Use of Fossil Fuels, All for No Purpose

Last week I pointed out how useless it is for the US to require reductions in US CO2 emissions, which if effective will not make any measurable change in atmospheric CO2 levels and have not resulted and will not result in any significant changes in emissions control by rapidly growing developing countries according to the

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EPA Power Plant Regulations Suffer Major Setback

Late today the US Supreme Court issued an unusual stay on EPA’s legally highly dubious so-called “Clean Power Plan” pending judicial review of the Plan. This is a major victory for opponents of the Plan since it prevents EPA from enforcing its power plant greenhouse gas emission regulations during the lengthy judicial review of the

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What Happens When Government Plays Market Maker

Increased energy use to assist humans in carrying out their daily tasks is perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of developed countries. Energy is used in various forms, but one of the most useful is electrical energy, which keeps finding additional productive uses. When governments attempt to directly interfere with the markets for critically important economic

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Modern Civilization Has a Bright Future After All

Thomas Malthus has had an enduring influence on Western thinking even though the human condition has changed greatly since his time. Many environmentalists, for example, believe that modern civilization cannot survive unless we abandon fossil fuels, which have made possible the huge improvements in standards of living since the Industrial Revolution. Malthus and these environmentalists

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Although Absurd, the Proposed Paris Treaty Is Still Very Dangerous

The proposed Paris non-treaty treaty, even though it objectively does little to advance the stated objectives of the climate alarmist cause, is nevertheless dangerous because it is contributing to that cause. The very weak logical connection to achieving the movement’s stated goal–reduced human CO2 emissions–does not make it benign since the movement as a whole

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The Absurd Unconditional, Unilateral US Commitment to Reduce Human CO2 Emissions

The climate alarmists maintain that emissions of carbon dioxide from human sources have increased global temperatures/climate change/extreme weather and if continued will do so catastrophically. They insist that this can be avoided only by huge decreases in human CO2 emissions even though there are many large natural sources which are only partly understood. No one

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Republican Congressional Leadership Proposing Sell Out on Climate Tax Extenders and 2016 Funding

The Republican Congressional leadership has agreed to multi-year proposed tax extenders for wind and solar development and to 2016 Federal appropriations without including most of the climate policy riders that Republicans approved earlier in the year. These riders were included in the individual agency appropriation bills restricting Executive Branch expenditures for climate regulation implementation. The

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Toothless, Non-binding UN Agreement Reached in Paris

Today the UN COP 21 in Paris reached agreement on a new international climate agreement after many years of meetings and oceans of propaganda. Although the agreement includes a number of aspirational statements, it is essentially toothless and non-binding. It is actually weaker than the Kyoto Protocol that it is intended to replace. The result

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The Next Week May Be a Significant One in the Climate Wars

Two events currently appear likely to change the endless climate saga over the next week. The well known one is the UN COP 21 meeting now ongoing in Paris. It is difficult to see how all the problems preventing a meaningful agreement since COP 15 in Copenhagen will somehow be resolved in the next few

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The Misplaced Priorities of the Obama Administration

In the last few days, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been criticizing President Obama for being “worried about global warming” while terrorists “want to blow up our country.” In one such appearance he went on to say, referring to President Obama: “He’s over there talking about global warming. Global warming’s our biggest problem. They

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What Happens When Environmentalists Ignore Both Science and Economics

In recent years many environmental organizations have united in support of an effort to reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere with the objective of reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. Their efforts have primarily been directed towards reducing CO2 emitted by electric power generating plants burning fossil fuels. The effort has made much more “progress” in some

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Two Major Issues at Paris COP21 that Are Not Likely to Be Resolved

The UN COP 21 meeting opens in Paris in about ten days. Very little “progress” towards a new worldwide agreement on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions appears to have been made at numerous preparatory meetings for it. Two issues are likely to be particularly troublesome. One is whether an agreement should be legally binding. The

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How the Environmentalists Won and the Environment Lost

Last week President Obama turned down the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Western Canada into the US. He was required to determine whether it was in the national interest; he claimed that it was not on the basis that it would have undermined US “global leadership” to “fight” climate change. He had taken

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A New Perspective on the Climate Wars

Matt Ridley has just published an interesting perspective on the climate wars from a lukewarmer’s viewpoint. It is short and concise. Ridley does not mention, however, that the scientific evidence is increasingly going against even the lukewarmers. I do agree with Ridley’s concerns about the damage to science as a result of the climate wars,

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The Electricity Supply Disaster We Now Face

Obama’s so-called “Clean Power Plan” (which I refer to as the Skyrocketing Rates Power Plan or SRPP) will dramatically raise electricity prices for most Americans and make electricity much more unreliable than it has been for the last hundred years. It will also impose centralized control of the system in a Washington bureaucracy (EPA) that

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Why Watchful Waiting Is the Best Response to Climate Alarmism

Developed countries have taken two basic approaches to the fears raised by climate alarmism. One is to attempt to negotiate a worldwide agreement under which all countries would make similar reductions in CO2 emissions. Another approach is to attempt to “set an example” by unilaterally reducing their own emissions and hoping that other countries will

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The Dramatic Shift in Democratic Party Climate Policy since 1997

Based partly on their statements at the October 13 Democratic presidential candidate debate, four of the current five Democratic candidates for President are now proposing a dramatic change in Democratic Party climate policy compared to 1997. They now favor unilateral reductions in US CO2 emissions and building many more non-hydro “renewable” energy sources in the

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The Uncertain Republican Congressional Trumpet

Climate policy has sometimes played more of a role in politics than often realized. The most obvious example is Australia, where a series of governments have fallen in recent years based primarily on their climate policies. Although these effects have been much less dramatic in the US, climate policy has had more effects than often

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The Major Unsolved Climate Alarmist Political Problem

Climate alarmism is a fantasy, nothing more. As discussed in my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad, available from the book website, there is simply no scientific or economic justification for remaking the world’s energy generation and delivery systems to reduce CO2 emissions. Everyone, particularly the world’s poor, will end up paying large bills and receiving

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The Fantasy World of UN Climate Negotiations

Fantasy pervades many aspects of climate alarmism. One of its core beliefs is that if the UN holds enough meetings agreement will be reached on a set of CO2 emission reductions that all parties can agree on (as required in many aspects of the UN world) that will actually significantly reduce world CO2 emissions. An

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Skyrocketing Electric Rates Version 2.0: The Major Problem

This week President Obama attended the Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience or GLACIER Conference in Anchorage. Afterwards he toured Alaska to highlight what he views as the dangerous effects of “climate change,” although Alaska temperatures have changed little in the last century. The most important thing that happened at the

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Climate Alarmists’ Chutzpah

The climate alarmists, whom I call the Climate-Industrial Complex or CIC in my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad (available from the book website), have built their own fantasy world, and have many of the characteristics of a cult. In addition, they have repeatedly shown considerable chutzpah. Here are a few particularly egregious examples: o If

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Should We Trust the EPA to Manage Our Electricity Generation and Use?

On August 5 the EPA itself triggered the release of 3 million gallons of toxic mining waste water near Silverton, Colorado. This flood contaminated a tributary of the Colorado River and moved toxic material through four states. Why this happened is unclear and may remain so until those involved are put under oath. So far

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What Can Happen When Special Interests Capture Government Regulatory Agencies

There can be little remaining doubt that the US Environmental Protection Agency no longer represents the best interests of the American public. It rather represents the interests of a small minority of the population calling themselves environmentalists plus industry groups that would profit from implementing their ideology. It is now clear that EPA, responding to

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Comments on the EPA CPP Regulation

[August 25, 2015 update: For a commentary on what Ms. McCarthy actually said see here.] On August 11, 2015, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy presented her views on “The Promise of the Clean Power Plan” in Washington, DC. I prepared a handout on behalf of the Cooler Heads Coalition. The handout was as follows: You are

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Major Presidential Candidate Endorses Global Climate Fantasy

This week Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposed that the US expand its use of “renewable” sources of electricity, particularly solar ones. She proposed that enough renewable power be generated to meet all household demand by 2027. She proposed doing this by implementing Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” increasing the number of government grants for “clean

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The Environmental Movement’s Capture of USEPA and What Might Be Done about It

The US Environmental Protection Agency was created at the end of 1970 in response to bipartisan popular interest in improving the environment. Unfortunately, Richard Nixon did not anticipate the subsequent shift of the environmental movement towards the extreme left and did not take the trouble (which would have required Congressional action) to build in safeguards

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The Fantasy World of Climate Alarmism

The climate alarmists (whom I call the Climate-Industrial Complex in my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad, available from the book Website) have gone to great effort to create a green energy fantasy world in hopes of convincing the world to spend trillions of dollars to decrease emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a trace

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Why Climate Alarmists Want Governments to Impose Limits to Growth Where None Exist

There has long been a difference of opinion between resource optimists and pessimists. Resource optimists believe that the primary constraints on resource availability are the ingenuity of humans in finding new and innovative ways to meet the resource requirements to meet human needs. Resource pessimists, on the other hand, believe that the availability of physical

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Two Cases of Environmentalism Gone Mad

It may seem odd but it is possible to have too much of anything, even something with a “clean” image such as environmentalism. So how could anyone be opposed to more environmentalism? The answer is that it is not only possible to have too much of it, there may even be too much of it

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A Response from an Allegedly “Abnormal” Skeptic

This week the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency implied that climate skeptics (she apparently used the far more pejorative term “climate denier” widely used by alarmists, of course) are abnormal. This seems more than a little odd since it is the climate alarmists (whom I refer to as the Climate Industrial Complex or

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The Basis for Making Environmental Decisions

On this the day of release of Pope Francis’ Encyclical it is worth remembering the basis for making environmental decisions. My book, Enironmentalism Gone Mad, (available from the book website) argues for the use of science, economics, and law. As discussed in the book, the economics is clear: Reducing emissions of CO2 has net costs

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One of the Ways that Environmentalism Has Gone Mad

When environmentalism was young in the mid-20th Century there was ample reason to be concerned about the the state of the environment in much of the world. In the US there was very little concern about pollution prior to about 1970. This all changed, however, in the 1970s and 1980s and strict pollution laws were enacted and

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Stairway Press Has Resolved Their Printing Problems for My Book

Stairway Press has informed me that their printing problems have been resolved and printed copies of my book are expected to reach them in about a week. Copies can be ordered from the book Webpage. Printed copies will reach other sellers shortly after that. My understanding is that the Kindle eBook version has been available

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Printed Versions of My New Book Delayed until Later in May

I have just been informed by the Publisher, Stairway Press, that the printed versions of my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad, have experienced printing delays and probably will not be available until Mid-May in the case of the black and white version and May 25 for the color version. Orders can continue to be placed

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New Book Provides Insights on a Number of Public Policy Issues Besides Radical Climate Environmentalism

Although my new book, entitled Environmentalism Gone Mad, primarily concerns radical climate environmentalism, it contains new material on a number of other public and environmental policy issues which I have been involved with, including the following: The Cold War controversy over the adequacy of US strategic nuclear weapons (found in Chapter 2). Economic development of

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New Book Available April 28

Stairway Press expects to publish my new book entitled Environmentalism Gone Mad: How a Sierra Club Activist and Senior EPA Analyst Discovered a Radical Green Energy Fantasy on April 28. A description of the book and its contents is available on a Website devoted to the book as well as links for ordering it in

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Interview Supplementing My Award Acceptance Remarks at ICCC-9

As a result of my award acceptance remarks for the 2014 Climate Change Whistleblower Award I received at the July, 2014 International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-9) sponsored by the Heartland Institute and other co-sponsors, I was recently interviewed by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute. The resulting interchange provides additional background concerning my remarks and

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My Remarks on New Proposed EPA Power Plant Regulations at ICCC9

On July 8 I received the 2104 Climate Science Whistleblower Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute and other cosponsoring organizations held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The following are remarks I prepared for my acceptance statement: I greatly appreciate receiving this award and for the efforts of the

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The Newly Urgent National Security Aspects of the Climate Change Issue

The annexation of Crimea by Russia has brought into focus an important aspect of the climate change debate. The US and the EU are trying to respond to the Russian annexation by using totally ineffective sanctions. Putin must be laughing at our pathetic response. The Russians are already threatening other parts of Ukraine. If successful,

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Professor Murry Salby Delivers Devastating Critique of IPCC AGW Climate Science

Updated November 14, 2013 On April 18, 2013 Professor Murry Salby, a widely respected astrophysicist and textbook author on atmospheric physics from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, delivered a devastating critique of the IPCC’s AGW climate science in a lecture in Hamburg, Germany: This appears to be a much more comprehensive presentation of some of

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The Need for Using Geoengineering to Avoid a New Ice Age Starting in the Next Few Millennia

In recent years interest in geoengineering has centered on the possibility of substituting it for reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions widely promoted as a solution to hypothesized global warming/climate change. Although it could be both more effective and cost-effective than GHG emission reductions for this purpose, a more fundamental question needs to be answered

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US Supports Costly Loss and Damage Mechanism at UN Doha Climate Meeting

Although there is little evidence for significant human impacts on climate, there is no credible evidence for human causation of extreme weather events, as I and many others have recently pointed out. Despite this, the US voted at a UN climate meeting in Doha, Qatar this week to establish a loss and damage mechanism under

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EPA’s Proposed Carbon “Pollution” Standard for New Power Plants

On May 23 I made a presentation on EPA’s proposed carbon “pollution” standard for new power plants at the Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7) in Chicago. My emphasis in the presentation was on my expectations as to what the Obama Administration would be likely to do concerning this and other proposed

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Excellent Videos Summarizing the Skeptic Case Available from Down Under

Anyone interested in viewing a succinct statement of the skeptic case with regard to global warming/climate change can find three short videos outlining the case here. This was presented to a film crew from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation making a documentary on climate skepticism but completely edited out in making the final version aired on

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Very Interesting New Paper on Astronomical Climatology

Ever wonder why there was a Little Ice Age or a Medieval Warm Period? Or why global temperatures increased slightly in the late 20th Century? On March 8 a preprint of Nicola Scafetta’s new paper entitled “Multi-scale Harmonic Model for Solar and Climate Cyclical Variation Throughout the Holocene Based on Jupiter-Saturn Tidal Frequencies Plus the

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Why a Copernican Revolution Is Needed in Climate Change Research

For the reasons discussed in a journal article I published last spring, it is clear that the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) hypothesis does not satisfy the scientific method and thus does not explain global warming/climate change. So what does? The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that they cannot think of any

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My Presentation on Climate Change Causation and Geoengineering at Moscow Conference on November 8

On November 8 I made a presentation on climate change causation and its implications for geoengineering at a conference sponsored by the Russian Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) in Moscow and supported by various United Nations organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was attended by the Panel’s Chairman and Deputy

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EPA Inspector General Finds Procedures Used in Preparing GHG Endangerment Finding Did Not Follow OMB Requirements

The USEPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a review questioning the procedures used in preparing the Technical Support Document (TSD) on which EPA’s Endangerment Finding for greenhouse gases (GHGs) was based. The review argues that the TSD was a “highly influential scientific assessment” but that EPA did not follow the Office of Management

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Murry Salby Presents Simple Analysis Showing that Variations in Atmospheric CO2 Are Primarily Due to Natural Temperature Changes, Not Humans

On August 2, 2011 Professor Murry Salby, Chair of Climate Science at Macquarie University in Australia with visiting professorships at Paris, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and Kyoto, made a presentation entitled Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources showing that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels appear to be primarily related to natural temperature changes,

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Heartland’s 6th International Conference on Climate Change June 30-July 1 in DC

On June 30 and July 1, the Heartland Institute will present an International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-6) in Washington, DC, entitled “Restoring the Scientific Method.” The theme acknowledges the fact that claims of scientific certainty and predictions of climate catastrophes are based on unvalidated atmospheric models and post-normal science, which tries to substitute claims

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My New Article on Climate Change Economics and Science Published in a Peer-reviewed Journal

Today my new paper on climate change science and economics was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a peer-reviewed journal. The paper is unusual from a number of different perspectives. Some Unusual Features From a policy perspective, the paper’s conclusions include the following: · The economic benefits of reducing CO2

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Warmists’ Meager Hopes for a Climate Bill in 2010 Dashed by Lack of Votes for Even Drastically Scaled Down Energy Bill

Warmists had little hope for a climate bill this year after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s July 22 decision not to push an energy bill this year containing cap and trade/tax provisions or renewable electricity standards. Reid’s decision yesterday not to bring even a greatly scaled down bill to a vote before the August Congressional

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July 22 May Well Mark the End for Major U.S. Climate Legislation and Global “Climate Control”

July 22 appears likely to mark a significant turning point in the long global warming/climate change control saga. Yesterday, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, announced that the Senate would not consider legislation prior to the August recess that involved either cap and trade/tax or a renewable electricity standard. Although this outcome had been predicted

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EPA: The Administration’s High Risk but Pivotal Climate Gamble

Note: This post is the summary of the first section of a paper that I presented at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute, Chicago, Illinois, May 17, 2010. The second section drew heavily on a previous post. The full paper can be downloaded here. The briefing slides used in

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Why Peer Review Is No Substitute for the Scientific Method

Given the the apparent death of cap and trade legislation in the US Senate, the short-term outcome of the US debate on action that allegedly might reduce climate change may rest primarily on what the USEPA manages to actually do. So it is of some importance what criteria EPA claims to be using in determining

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Phil Jones May Still Have Some More Reflecting To Do

Jones Has Conceded a Little, but He Remains Unwilling to Take a More Objective View of Climate Science One notable aspect of Phil Jones’ responses to the BBC (see BBC news article and Q&As) was the fact that the BBC actually asked some probing questions and Jones actually answered them. But of more significance was

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Why the Whole AGW/Warmist Narrative Is Even Weaker than Its Components

Current scrutiny of the AGW/alarmist/warmist positions quite deservedly centers primarily on the scientific integrity of the UN/IPCC reports, which in the United States may be crucial in the question of whether EPA acted in accordance with EPA regulations in determining that GHGs endanger public health and welfare. It is important, however, not to lose sight

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Climategate and EPA

In my view the Emails and computer files from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in Great Britain may prove to be of some importance to the USEPA’s current attempts to control greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act. This is because EPA, perhaps at the urging of others in the Obama Administration, has proposed

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Why the UN GHG Hypothesis Should Be Rejected on Scientific Grounds

(Updated August 11, 2010 to include added sources; for further updates and related material, see Publications, particularly #s1 and 4, and this 2015 post.) In a previous post I explained why I believe that the United Nations GHG hypothesis that significant global warming will occur as a result of increasing greenhouse gas (such as CO2)

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Global Temperature Charts Suggest Implausibility of UN CO2 Hypothesis

On June 30 I appeared on the Glenn Beck show, where I showed two charts from my Comments on the proposed EPA endangerment finding report. Although these two graphs do not prove or disprove the existence of significant global warming as a result of increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (the principal UN

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How Skepticism Concerning the UN Hypothesis Fits with Interest in Geoengineering

Some may have wondered how I reconcile my skepticism about the United Nations hypothesis that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have an important effect on global temperatures fits with my interest in stratospheric geoengineering as an attractive alternative to reductions in CO2 emissions? This interest is shown in four of my previous publications

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Comments on Proposed EPA Endangerment Technical Support Document

On June 25th the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a draft copy of my report critical of the science underlying EPA’s proposed position on Endangerment under the Clean Air Act and the role of CO2 in global warming saying: “The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and

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