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. More energy social engineering through energy demand side management
Karen McMahan reports in today’s Carolina Journal Online:
Several Democratic state House members are seeking to boost energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy efforts by making it more expensive to purchase products that do not meet federal energy efficiency standards. House Bill 135 also would establish an inverted electricity rate structure on customers using power generated by electric public utilities. Under that rate structure, consumers who use higher quantities of energy would pay more per kilowatt hour than those who consume less energy.
This summarizes House Bill 135, the latest attempt by at least some legislators to socially engineer people’s consumer purchases and electricity usage in the name of so-called energy efficiency. For the last decade there has been a concerted effort by both political parties, the environmental movement, and the traditional utility companies along with the alternative energy industry to implement what is called "demand side management."
That rather straightforward term is used to describe policies meant to manipulate ("manage"), through political decision-making, what would otherwise be people’s freely made choices (demand). HB 135 is part of this ongoing — and so far politically successful — effort to force people to live their lives the way politicians want them to.
Standing in direct opposition to this approach is the proposed repeal of North Carolina’s Renewable Portfolio and Energy Efficiency Standard — the statewide energy tax known as SB3. Unfortunately, the consortium of the state’s power elite described above are lined up in opposition to this repeal, in direct conflict with the interests of consumers and economic growth.
2. New study calls into question the predictions of sea level rise
A new study due out in the Journal of Coastal Research concludes sea level rise has not accelerated over the last century. According to this summary of the study, the authors (J.R. Houston and R.G. Dean)
conclude that the evidence points to the absence of tide-gauge data supporting any acceleration in the SL rise trend of the past century. This calls into question the many projections of rates of rise above this trend, which would be required for larger projected total increases due to AGW (anthropogenic global warming). They feel it is essential to resolve this discrepancy between the theoretical projections and the historical data.
The paper summary further notes,
This paper helps provide some statistical clarity to the debate on whether (assumed) anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is contributing to increases in sea levels which are larger than what would be expected through extrapolation of the past. It is thought that a significant rate of acceleration would offer some evidence of this. They contrast the rates of acceleration which they discover with those implicit with the 2010 sea rise projections of the IPCC-4AR, [one of the global warming "story lines" described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and with subsequent papers projecting even higher increases due to AGW.
3. SB 3 repeal continues to be opposed by all the power and electric power elite
Most of NC’s Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with big energy (which includes the utility monopolies and the solar and wind industries) and the environmental community, are lining up against repeal of the statewide energy tax known as SB3 (see item No. 1 above). Including themselves in with the state’s governing power elites is The News & Observer. Here is their editorial in favor of keeping the bill and my letter to the editor in response.
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