This weekly newsletter, focused on environmental issues, highlights relevant analysis done by the John Locke Foundation and other think tanks, as well as items in the news.
1. Global warming caused the heavy snows this winter
According to two climate scientists, Jeff Masters and Mark Serreze, corralled by the far left Union of Concerned Scientists, the large amounts of snow this winter are consistent with global warming. Of course their arguments are based on nothing that has been published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. (Isn’t it nice to be promoting a hypothesis that even contradictory evidence can’t falsify? I think that used to be called religion.) This news story explains their argument.
The articles below rightfully ridicule the proclamations. One article notes that the Union of Concerned Scientists "sponsored a workshop on Mt. Washington in 2007 in which they promised ski areas that snow would be hard to come by even in northern areas and they might consider another profession." A second article suggests that according to the logic of Masters and Serreze, the reason that before now we haven’t seen snow in Mississippi and Alabama is that they must have been too cold. See here, here, here, and here.
It is quite clear that what the alarmist eco-left has decided to do is to continuously adjust its story to fit whatever facts are presented to them, while always managing to keep the same tragic ending.
2. The cost of green jobs is the loss of even more jobs
Consistent with what economic science would predict, a new study of government spending on the creation of so-called "green jobs" shows that they are reducing employment more that it is expanding it. This article from the BBC reports on a study of government spending on green technology in Britain, which has found that "3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole." This finding is consistent with a study of green jobs in Spain, which concluded that for every job gained through renewable energy subsidies, 2.2 were lost.
3. Oh, the irony: Obama’s deficit’s could save us from his anti low-cost energy "climate" agenda
In it attempt to rein in government spending, Congress is proposing to slash EPA funding. Cuts would include funding for implementation of the new CO2 regulations that the EPA is going forward with in spite of Congress’ explicit decision to forgo such regulations. The Congressional budget also includes the defunding of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — and who said there was nothing good about these giant budget deficits?
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