Greenhouse Gas Cuts Proving Illusory

by H. Sterling Burnett

Recent greenhouse gas emissions cuts reported by developed nations are illusory, a new peer-reviewed study has found, as many of the cuts have occurred simply as a result of industries relocating to developing nations such as China and India.

Migrating Emissions
As analysts and some politicians recognized when debating the Kyoto protocol, rapid economic growth in developing nations has offset the emissions cuts in industrialized economies. Much of that growth has occurred in China and India as a result of lower wages for workers and less stringent pollution controls and environmental standards.

Ironically, industries that have recently moved overseas merely export the same goods back to developed nations, such that global greenhouse gas emissions are unaffected or actually increase.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines the extent of “outsourced” carbon emissions. Conducted by the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, the study finds emissions from increased production of internationally traded products have more than offset the emissions reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.

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High Speed Rail Subsidies in Iowa: Nothing for Something

by Wendell Cox

The Federal government is again offering money it does not have to entice a state (Iowa) to spend money that it does not have on something it does not need. The state of Iowa is being asked to provide funds to match federal funding for a so-called "high speed rail" line from Chicago to Iowa City. The new rail line would simply duplicate service that is already available. Luxury intercity bus service is provided between Iowa City and Chicago twice daily. The luxury buses are equipped with plugs for laptop computers and with free wireless high-speed internet service. Perhaps most surprisingly, the luxury buses make the trip faster than the so-called high speed rail line, at 3:50 hours. The trains would take more than an hour longer (5:00 hours). No one would be able to get to Chicago quicker than now. Only in America does anyone call a train that averages 45 miles per hour "high speed rail."

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Renewable Energy Requires Vast Amounts of Natural Resources

by Robert Bryce

IN April, Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines by signing into law an ambitious mandate that requires California to obtain one-third of its electricity from renewable energy sources like sunlight and wind by 2020. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia now have renewable electricity mandates. President Obama and several members of Congress have supported one at the federal level. Polls routinely show strong support among voters for renewable energy projects — as long as they don’t cost too much.

But there’s the rub: while energy sources like sunlight and wind are free and naturally replenished, converting them into large quantities of electricity requires vast amounts of natural resources — most notably, land. Even a cursory look at these costs exposes the deep contradictions in the renewable energy movement.

Consider California’s new mandate. The state’s peak electricity demand is about 52,000 megawatts. Meeting the one-third target will require (if you oversimplify a bit) about 17,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. Let’s assume that California will get half of that capacity from solar and half from wind. Most of its large-scale solar electricity production will presumably come from projects like the $2 billion Ivanpah solar plant, which is now under construction in the Mojave Desert in southern California. When completed, Ivanpah, which aims to provide 370 megawatts of solar generation capacity, will cover 3,600 acres — about five and a half square miles.

The math is simple: to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan. While there’s plenty of land in the Mojave, projects as big as Ivanpah raise environmental concerns. In April, the federal Bureau of Land Management ordered a halt to construction on part of the facility out of concern for the desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Wind energy projects require even more land. The Roscoe wind farm in Texas, which has a capacity of 781.5 megawatts, covers about 154 square miles. Again, the math is straightforward: to have 8,500 megawatts of wind generation capacity, California would likely need to set aside an area equivalent to more than 70 Manhattans. Apart from the impact on the environment itself, few if any people could live on the land because of the noise (and the infrasound, which is inaudible to most humans but potentially harmful) produced by the turbines.

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Eco-Friendly Toilets Cause a Stink

by Daily Mail Reporter

San Francisco is paying a high - and smelly -price for promoting eco-friendly low-flow toilets.

Twenty million gallons a year are being saved, but because the small amount of water isn't pushing the waste away fast enough there's a stinky whiff in parts of the city.

Now authorities are set to undermine the toilets' green credentials by flushing $14 million worth of bleach to solve the problem.

Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tyrone Jue admitted that skimping on toilet water had caused more sludge to back up inside the sewer pipes.

It has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park - home to the San Francisco Giants - and other parts of the Bay Area, especially during the summer months.

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The Unseen Consequences of "Green Jobs"

by Ronald Bailey

A new report, "Defining, Measuring, and Predicting Green Jobs," by University of Texas economist Gurcan Gulen, issued by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, takes apart many studies predicting that policies mandating alternative energy production, energy efficiency, and conservation will create a boom in employment.

First, Gulen notes that many such studies fail to define clearly what they mean by green jobs. He points out that many pro-green jobs studies do not distinguish temporary construction jobs from more permanent operation jobs. Many studies also assume that green jobs will pay more than jobs in conventional energy production. But why would a construction job at a wind farm pay more than one at a conventional power plant?

Even more disturbingly, many green job studies have no analyses of job losses. Clean energy costs more than conventional energy, which means consumers and businesses will have less income with which to buy and invest. This reduces their consumption of other goods and services, resulting in job losses in those sectors—one of Bastiat's "unseen" effects. In addition, many studies simultaneously count on protectionist policies to exclude clean energy imports while assuming that domestic companies will be freely exporting to other countries.

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Tiny LED holiday bulbs contain lead, arsenic

by Wendy Koch

Small holiday LED bulbs, marketed as eco-friendly alternatives to traditional light bulbs, contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, reports a study released Thursday.

The low-intensity red LEDs (light emitting diodes) in Christmas lighting strands had up to eight times the amount of lead allowed under California law, and while the white bulbs had less lead than the colored ones, they had high levels of nickel, according to a team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Davis.

"I didn't expect this full range of chemicals to leach out," said study co-author Oladele Ogunseitan, chairman, of UC Irvine's Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention. He said the research, published in the January 2011 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, is the first to examine LEDs for toxic chemicals.

Ogunseitan told Green House that consumers are not at risk unless the bulbs break. In that event, he advises users to sweep up the pieces with a special broom while wearing gloves and a mask. He says the tiny red LEDs are "hazardous waste" and shouldn't be tossed in the trash.

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Andrew Klavan: The Highway to Hell

States of Fear: Science or Politics?

At one time, both the pseudoscientific geocentric notion of the universe (that the Earth lies at the center of the solar system) and eugenics (the racial theory to “purify” the human race) were widely accepted by leaders in science, politics, journalism, and business. Such theories were pushed by powerful interest groups that possessed highly politicized agendas driving government policies and public opinion, until ultimately both theories were disproved. Is environmental debate today, including global warming, bio-technology, and other issues, based on science or politics? Are popular accounts of such issues rooted in science or phantom risks? Are government policies focusing on the trivial while ignoring the real, and in the process wasting limited resources, crippling human innovation to address true dangers, and inviting tyranny? In discussing not just environmental issues but the increasing politicization of science itself, best-selling author Michael Crichton examines the intersection of media, politics, and science, inspiring viewers to challenge old assumptions and to search beneath the surface of issues as they seek to discover the truth.

The Unintended Consequences of Environmentalism

by Larry Bell

Just as everything humans have done in the name of industrial progress hasn't been kind to the environment, it shouldn't be assumed that everything is bad either. Yet the modern-day environmental activist movement tends not to see it that way.

[But the fact is] as civilizations have evolved, so have sanitary conditions. Life expectancies have more than doubled since times when raw sewage was heaped upon the streets of grand Greek and Roman empires and plagues and famines devastated rural populations.

There are big differences between the responsible environmental stewardship ideals that most of us subscribe to, and the moralistic, anti-development, obstructionist activism that exemplifies much of today's environmental zealotry. Often premised on pseudoscientific rationale, publicized through expensive ad campaigns and lawyered up for battle, private and public green activism is asserting ever-expanding, and sometimes hazardous, influences over broad aspects of our lives.

The beginning of the environmental movement is conventionally associated with a virtual flood of reaction to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring after it first appeared in 1963. The book called attention to the thinning of eggshells among certain bird species, which threatened their existence, along with alleged toxic problems throughout the food chain attributed to crop spraying of the pesticide DDT. These claims are clearly credited with a prohibition against DDT use in the U.S. since 1972, and a similar ban in Europe.

The U.S. DDT prohibition was issued in a decision by then EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus following a long hearing on risks and benefits of the material. But after calling 125 witnesses and reviewing 9,362 pages of testimony, Judge Edmund Sweeney, the appointed hearing examiner, had actually concluded that alarm was unwarranted: First, DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man; second, DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man; and third, the use of DDT under the registrations involved does not have a deleterious effect on fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.

The World Health Organization pleaded at the EPA hearings that DDT was very beneficial in fighting malaria in many parts of the world and should not be banned, stating that withdrawal of its use would be "... a major tragedy in the chapter of human health." Still, due to threatened European trade restrictions against countries that used the chemical, African nations terminated use of the effective mosquito pesticide for malaria control.

Since that time death rates from the disease have increased dramatically, and are now estimated to be between 155,000 and 310,000 annually, according to data collected at 41 African sites from 1997 to 2002. The vast majority of these victims are desperately poor, including large numbers of young children and elderly who are especially vulnerable.

Read More about DDT, Acid Rain, Light Bulbs, Mercury, Nuclear Power, Oil & Gas...

Unintended Consequences