Frustrated wannabe authoritarians

It’s refreshing to see Democrats tear their hair out over the blessings our freedoms give us. Just look at their goal of “transitioning” from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles (including airplanes and construction equipment). The whole plan is based on the unproven connection between the use of fossil fuels and climate change.

Whatever their motivations, it’s not working out as they hoped it would. Don’t be surprised if they soon switch crusades from climate change to some other “emergency.”

As is often the case, Democrats were smitten with a cause — in this case, electric vehicles to rescue the climate — and assumed everyone else would fall in love with it, too.

Then, when President Joe Biden proposed rules that would require 60 percent of new cars sold to be battery-powered by 2030 and 66 percent by 2032, what happened?

Unfortunately for these aspiring socialists, the U.S. economy is still predominantly based on that economic freedom known as voluntary exchange.

So far, auto buyers have not voluntarily exchanged enough of their hard earned dollars for E.V.s. The vast majority continue to prefer fossil fuel alternatives. At this point, only about 7 percent of cars sold are electric. Furthermore, according to a McKinsey & Company survey, 46 percent of electric vehicle owners say they intend to switch back to internal-combustion cars.

A Catch-22 the E.V. enthusiasts are struggling with is the need to maintain a rough balance between the number of E.V.s and the number of charging stations. Unless the number of E.V.s grows, there will be no incentive to build more charging stations. A scarcity of charging stations is already something that E.V. owners complain about.

Democrat policy-makers believe they are far more clever than the rest of us. They don’t seem to think it’s necessary to determine how many car buyers are perfectly happy with their gasoline and diesel vehicles and unimpressed with E.V.s.

In order for their electric vehicle dream to happen, let alone work, they would have needed unlimited power from the git-go. Their precious transition would have required not just subsidies, but brute force as well. Their plan would have necessitated doing away with, in advance, our preference for voluntary exchange.

Democrats are against voluntary exchange because they don’t approve of what we do with it, such as producing and consuming fossil fuels. Fortunately for the rest of us, these incompetent Marxists neglected to emasculate us prior to springing their E.V. fantasy on us. They mistakenly left us free to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Thanks to voluntary exchange we did just that.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/frustrated_wannabe_authoritarians.html

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Most climate policies have something in common: They don't work

by Jeff Jacoby

IN SEPTEMBER 1945, the classical liberal scholar (and future Nobel laureate) Friedrich Hayek published "The Use of Knowledge in Society." One of the most influential articles in modern economics, it explained that far-reaching government policies often fail because policy makers invariably lack all the knowledge required to understand a problem well enough to solve it. Consequently, government policies frequently backfire, trigger unintended consequences, or simply prove unavailing.

Examples of Hayek's insight, often called "the knowledge problem," abound. Urban renewal tore apart once-vibrant communities, displacing tens of thousands of residents or relocating them into housing projects that became centers of poverty and crime. The war on drugs resulted in mass incarceration, yet drugs remain widely available and overdose deaths are at or near an all-time high. Crop subsidies have routinely led to overproduction, distorted markets, and the enrichment of agribusiness giants at the expense of small farmers. Minimum wage laws, intended to boost the earnings of vulnerable workers, invariably cost many of those very workers their jobs.

Time and again, reality makes hash of the misbegotten assumption that politicians and regulators have sufficient information to plan or fine-tune complex economic systems. The bigger and more complex the system, the more likely that government policies designed to control it will turn out to be ineffective. And what system could be bigger or more complex than planetary climate change?

In a peer-reviewed study published last month in the journal Science, an international team of climate researchers and econometricians analyzed more than 1,500 climate policies enacted in 41 countries between 1998 and 2022. Their conclusion: "We identified 63 successful policy interventions with total emission reductions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tons" of carbon dioxide.

In other words, roughly 96 percent of government policies aimed at reducing emissions were largely unsuccessful. And the 4 percent that did have a measurable impact managed to reduce greenhouse gases by a global total of, at most, 1.8 billion metric tons. That amounts to just over two-tenths of 1 percent (0.23 percent) of the 778 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted by those nations in the first two decades of this century. The emissions cuts required to reach the targets specified in the 2015 Paris Agreement — a reduction the United Nations calculates at 23 billion metric tons per year by 2030 — remain far, far out of reach.

The authors of the new paper make a valiant effort to assign their findings a silver lining. The relatively few policies that succeeded in lowering emissions were those that involved "price-based instruments" — which, as one of the researchers explained to The Wall Street Journal, "means carbon pricing, and it could be energy taxes, it could be vehicle taxes." So the researchers suggest that governments would do best to devise policies that combine pricing with other kinds of control — lower taxes plus stricter regulation, for example, or mandatory minimum carbon prices plus new efficiency standards.

To their credit, though, the authors acknowledge the inherent difficulty of crafting climate rules with any confidence that they will have the desired effect. "Despite more than two decades of experience with thousands of diverse climate policy measures gained around the world," they write, "there is consensus in neither science nor policy on this question."

Or, as senior editor Jesse Smith observes in Science's introduction to the new paper: "It is easy for countries to say they will reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, but these statements do not mean that the policies they adopt will be effective." By now there is little doubt that the policies most commonly adopted to address climate change and curb greenhouse emissions — enormous subsidies for green energy and ever-tighter restrictions on the use of fossil fuels — have not been effective.

After a quarter-century of increasingly clamorous alarms about CO2 and the imposition of sweeping laws and regulations to curtail greenhouse gases, governments can report very little accomplishment. "Global fossil fuel consumption and energy emissions hit all-time highs in 2023," Reuters reported in June. Renewable energy is up a little, thanks to all those subsidies, but its growth has been in addition to conventional fuels, not instead of them.

Thanks to enormous subsidies, renewable energy has increased in recent years. But its growth has been in addition to conventional fuels, not instead of them. Above: The Drax Power Station, a former coal plant in Selby, England, that was converted to burn biomass pellets.

The moral of the story is that what is true of housing policy or health care policy or agricultural policy is just as true of climate policy. It is very difficult for governments to knowingly and wisely change how society functions. Legislators and regulators rarely possess the necessary information to do so. They may have technical expertise, but they lack the tacit data and intelligence that is dispersed among countless individuals — subjective preferences, local conditions, changing circumstances, unspoken motivations.

In 1945, Hayek knew nothing of a climate crisis. But he did know that the "knowledge problem" never goes away. It is always sensible for policy makers to be modest about their ability to effect change. And the greater the change they envision, the more doubt they should entertain of their ability to achieve it.

https://jeffjacoby.com/28036/most-climate-policies-have-something-in-common

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What’s Good For Generac Is Bad For America. We Bought One Anyway

If you are in the business of selling standby home generators, hurricanes, severe weather, and blackouts are good for business. And as the frequency of blackouts across the country increases, companies like Generac are making bank on the declining reliability of the US electric grid.

Generac is profiting from people like me. Back in 2021, during Winter Storm Uri, we lost power for two days. At that time, I thought the Texas grid would recover and all would return to normal. That hasn’t happened. Over the past 12 months, we have lost power at our house in central Austin three times, and in each instance, the outage lasted eight hours or more. Plus, ERCOT has repeatedly warned about looming power shortages.

Given all that, we are installing one of Generac’s whole-house standby generators. The cost: about $15,000 for a 22-kilowatt, gas-fired, air-cooled system that will automatically turn on when the lights go out. Our contractor is Current Power Technologies, a new company based in San Antonio. Grant Winston, the company’s founder and owner, told me business is “booming.” During a phone interview on Monday, he said, “I’m opening a division in Houston.” He’s also doing a lot of business in the custom home sector. As the number of blackouts in Texas has risen, standby generators are “becoming more of a standard appliance in new homes throughout the state.”

Our decision to buy a standby generator is part of a broader trend. Wisconsin-based Generac is the country’s biggest producer of home generator systems, and it sees a fertile market ahead. In its latest 10-K filing, Generac notes:

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has labeled significant portions of the United States and Canada as being at high risk of resource adequacy shortfalls during normal seasonal peak conditions in the 2024-2028 period due in part to these supply/demand dynamics. We are seeing increasing evidence that warnings of potential resource inadequacies are driving incremental consumer awareness of the need for backup power solutions. We believe utility supply shortfalls and related warnings may continue in the future, further expanding awareness of deteriorating power quality in North America. Taken together, we expect these factors to continue driving increased awareness of the need for backup power and demand for Generac’s products within multiple categories.

In its second-quarter earnings release, published on July 31, the company reported revenues of $1 billion, and it issued new guidance, saying sales will increase by 4 to 8% this year. In addition, it noted that Hurricane Beryl, which slammed Texas in July:

Highlighted the rising threat of severe and volatile weather as millions of Texans experienced power outages in the aftermath of the storm. This major power outage event is expected to drive incremental demand for home standby and portable generators in the current year, while also driving higher levels of awareness for backup power longer-term as home and business owners seek protection from future power outages. With only approximately 6% penetration of the addressable market of homes in the U.S., we believe there are significant opportunities to further penetrate the residential standby generator market as the clear leader in this category.

But what’s good for Generac is bad for America. The money being spent on home standby generators reflects the declining reliability of our power grid. Essayist Emmet Penney nailed it in 2021 when he declared that, “there is no such thing as a wealthy society with a weak electrical grid.”

The electric grid is the Mother Network. It’s the energy network that fuels all of our critical systems: lights, GPS, communications, traffic lights, water, and wastewater treatment. And yet, lousy policy and malinvestment are weakening the Mother Network. The result is what Generac calls an “increasingly imbalanced electric grid.”

Three things are weakening the grid. The most significant factor is the headlong rush to add intermittent alt-energy sources such as wind and solar. As seen above, Generac names “increasing intermittency” as one of the factors for “supply reliability deteriorating.” If we are facing more extreme weather conditions due to climate change, it’s beyond idiocy to make our most important energy network dependent on the weather. Our grid should be weather resilient, not weather dependent.

Second, too many coal and nuclear plants that provide baseload power are being prematurely shuttered.

Third, policymakers have bought the notion that electricity is a commodity instead of an essential service. This notion is, in part, a legacy of Enron, a company that wanted to trade electricity in the same way that it traded natural gas and other physical commodities. Perhaps the best example of this misunderstanding of electricity can be traced to 1999 when the Texas Legislature debated a bill that would deregulate the Texas electricity market, a measure that Enron was pushing. (The bill passed.)

During that debate, state Senator David Sibley, a Republican from Waco, stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate and declared that after deregulation, people will “be able to shop” for electricity. “If they don’t like the electric provider they’ve got, they can switch. If the price of a can of beans goes up 10 cents, people shop somewhere else. If the price of electricity goes up, people for the first time will have a choice on what they’re going to do. It’s no more business as usual.”

Shop ‘til you drop, Senator, but electricity ain’t beans.

Ever since the days of Edison and Insull, regulators have correctly viewed the electricity business as a natural monopoly. But in the name of free markets and capitalism, policymakers on the left and right have tried to make electricity fit the notion that it can be treated like any other commodity, including cans of legumes.

That has led to the current situation where no one is responsible for the electricity system’s reliability. As Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling noted here on Substack earlier this year, electricity prices are soaring, in part, due to the addition of massive amounts of solar and wind capacity to the grid, regardless of their impact on cost and reliability. They included a link to an excellent 2017 piece by Travis Kavulla, which said, “There is no free market for electricity, and there may never be.”

The declining reliability of the grid is adding a tax to the overall economy. Yes, the money we are spending on the generator is helping support factory workers in Wisconsin and a cadre of local electricians, plumbers, and skilled laborers. But our $15,000 Generac is a huge addition to our power bill that may — or may not — pay dividends over the coming years. Austin Energy (and ERCOT) have shown they can’t provide our home with reliable power. Thus, we are buying an expensive insurance policy.

https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/whats-good-for-generac-is-bad-for

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"Dying” Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are some of creation’s most strikingly beautiful places. Clean and clear blue water, graceful whales and sea turtles, swarms of dazzling fishes, and amazing coral. We can’t get enough of coral reefs, so we adorn our walls with paintings and photos. Saltwater aquariums abound in households, restaurants and businesses around the world.

Naturally, we want to protect all this goodness and beauty. Stewardship is in our DNA. Our emotions can kick in when a threat is perceived. Unfortunately, nefarious people know this about us. People whose agenda has more to do with global power and control than with protecting coral reefs. They tap into our emotions by manufacturing threats, mixing nuggets of truth with futuristic doomsday scenarios designed to keep us in constant fear that we may lose what we love unless things change according to their plan.

Take for example the PBS News feature titled “Conservationists take drastic measures to save coral reefs from climate change.” Published earlier this year, the video begins by falsely claiming that coral reefs around the world are “slowly dying.” The video then shows members of the Coral Restoration Foundation in Florida scrambling to save a manmade coral nursery they had just planted. Members reportedly gave each other “space to grieve” the corals that died.

The truth nugget was that, indeed, the corals were dying and the water was hot. Optimum temperatures for coral are in the 73-84 °F range. At this point in July 2023, water temperatures in the coral nursery were in the low 90s.

But this truth nugget is embedded in a swarm of lies. Like the story’s title, for one. Or the narrator’s claims that in nearby Manatee Bay, waters reached 101 °F, stating this might be the “hottest ocean temperature ever recorded on Earth.” First of all, Manatee Bay is not an “ocean,” it’s a shallow, semi-enclosed body of water. Most likely, this temperature reading was measured one afternoon in a very shallow (like 6 inches deep) and stagnant part of the bay, nowhere near coral reef habitat.

Later in the story, the narrator quietly mentions that in October, the corals were returned to the nursery area. No mention is made of the “climate change” event that caused the waters to cool. Why was the natural summertime warming correlated with “climate change,” while the Fall cooling was not? To media outlets like PBS, cooling is not “climate change.” Only above average summer temperatures and fake 101 °F “ocean” temperature measurements fit the narrative.

With the “climate change” threat averted by Fall and Winter, the PBS story switches to an even more ferocious, and fake, threat: the total collapse of all coral reefs everywhere. IF something this cataclysmic actually happened, we would all be dead, too, but nevermind that minor detail.

Enter the Smithosonian’s Mary Hagedorn, who spearheads a coral cryopreservation project. Hagedorn works for the largely taxpayer funded Smithsonian on Coconut Island in Hawaii. She says she wants to preserve coral for future generations, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Throughout the world we have “seed banks” to preserve plant species. In a similar manner, Hagedorn hopes to develop a cheap and replicable system to create “coral banks” around the world.

While the reasons for storing coral fragments in liquid nitrogen may be the thing of science fantasy, the actual knowledge gleaned from projects like this could have benefits in other fields like medicine, or in real conservation work to help a reef recover more quickly after damage from a hurricane.

Oddly, the PBS video ends with a headline that there is a coral reef in 600-3,000 ft of water in the Atlantic that is 3 times the size of Yellowstone National Park! Wait, you just told us coral reefs are slowly dying, and now you are saying there is a massive, very alive coral reef in the deep and cold ocean?!

Normally, corals need sunlight to fuel the symbiotic zooxanthellae algae that live amongst them. These algae give corals their color, and will leave when stressed, turning the corals bright pink to white, hence the phrase “coral bleaching.” Apparently these deepwater corals survive just fine without the zooxanthellae.

Did you catch that about coral bleaching? It can be a stress indicator with shallow water corals, but it doesn’t mean they are dead. The PBS story quickly mentions this, and just as quickly moves on, because “coral bleaching” is a scary phrase that needs to stay tied to their false narrative of “climate change” resulting from fossil fuel generated CO2.

The misuses of naturally-occurring coral bleaching are legion among the doomsayers. A great example comes from John Brewer Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. A famous 2022 photo in The Guardian shows a mostly-bleached coral near the reef’s surface. “It’s depressing to think about,” says Dr. Terry Hughes, who in 2017 was lead author of a paper in the journal Nature that fits the “coral bleaching is global warming” false narrative.

Thankfully, facts still matter to some, like Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne-based think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. Just a year after The Guardian article, Marohasy took her 50 years of ocean experience out to John Brewer Reef to check on the now-famous coral patch. As you can see in this video she made, the coral patch is now doing just fine, as are most of the corals on John Brewer Reef.

Rather than get emotional about unprovable doomsday fantasies, real scientists like Marohasy verify the claims the doomsayers make by simply observing the real world. And the real world tells a different, and much more positive story! The real story is that coral lives in a harsh and highly variable environment, and can handle a lot of stresses. Yes, we can do very bad things to coral reefs, like these fools from China who allegedly poisoned a coral reef with cyanide just so fishermen from the Philippines couldn’t use it. We need to steward coral reefs well, constantly reevaluating our efforts to find the best balance between too much protection and not enough conservation

https://cornwallalliance.org/pbs-and-the-false-narrative-of-slowly-dying-coral-reefs/

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