Finally, Some Critical Thinking On The Subject Of The Feasibility Of Renewables

If you are interested in the question of whether it makes sense to try to eliminate fossil fuels from the electricity production system, you are undoubtedly frustrated, as I am, by the astounding absence of critical thinking coming from almost everybody who writes about this subject.  There just seems to be such an incredible hunger to believe that this can work that literally nobody is willing to raise, let alone address, the very serious issues of feasibility and cost.  I have made my own humble efforts to throw something into the void by writing a series of posts that principally address the cost side of the problem.  See, for example, here and here.  

Now there is a serious contribution to the feasibility side of the problem, in the form of a recent (March 23) article from the publication Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, titled "Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems."   The authors are a group led by B.P. Heard of the University of South Australia in Adelaide.  I don't know anything about most of the authors; but the fact that Tom Wigley of UCAR is one of them would indicate that you could not fairly call these people "climate deniers," or even "skeptics."  Hat tip to Kenneth Richard at NoTricksZone for the pointer to this article.

Heard, et al., have undertaken a comprehensive effort to identify every study since 2006 that has made a claim that "a 100% renewable energy system is achievable."  From that universe, they have then narrowed the field to some 24 that "have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible."  And then they do a deep analysis of each of the 24 on four fundamental feasibility criteria:

1. Realistic projection of future demand.  The issue here is that many of the studies in question project leveling off or declining of demand over the 21st century, somehow not realizing that world population is almost certain to increase by several billion during that period, and that electricity is going to come to large areas that don't currently have it, like Africa.  (Some of the studies in question, particularly ones done by environmental groups like WWF, project global energy demand declining by something like 90% by 2050!);
2. Realistic simulation of the matching of supply to demand so as to maintain near 100% reliability of the system.  Here the problem is that electricity supply must be matched very closely to demand on literally a minute-by-minute basis.  Therefore, studies that only consider or simulate the matching of supply and demand on a daily, or even hourly, basis are just kidding themselves;
3. Realistic simulation of how much additional transmission capacity would be needed; and
4. Realistic handling of what are referred to as "ancillary services."  The two big ones are voltage control (an electric grid operates with near-constant voltage -- not such an easy thing to achieve with wind and solar inputs ramping up and down by orders of magnitude over the course of minutes), and frequency control (alternating current systems have current that changes direction on a set frequency, generally 50 or 60 times per second -- again, not such an easy thing to keep regular when wind and solar production surge in and out).

And the results:

Based on our criteria, none of the 100% renewable-electricity studies we examined provided a convincing demonstration of feasibility. Of the 24 studies we assessed, . . . [f]our scenarios . . . did not meet a single feasibility criterion. Eight of the 24 scenarios did not do any form of integrated simulation to verify the reliability of the proposed renewable electricity system. Twelve of the 24 relied on unrealistic energy-demand scenarios, either by assuming unrealistic reductions in total primary energy and/or by making assumptions of extreme increases in electrification. Only four of the studies articulated the necessary transmission requirements for the system to operate, and only two scenarios, from the same authors [8], partially addressed how ancillary services might be maintained in modified electricity-supply systems. No studies addressed the distribution-level infrastructure that would be required to accommodate increased embedded generation, leaving a gap in the evidence relating to ancillary services and overall system reliability.    

To put it another way, 24 out of 24 studies that rose to the level of "potentially credible" all proved without exception to be exercises in self-delusion.  Who here is surprised?

The authors are notably critical -- and in my view appropriately so -- of trendy Stanford prof Mark Jacobson, the guy who provides the supposed studies that give Jerry Brown the idea that he can "save the planet" by forcing Californians to get all of their power from wind and solar.  Here are Heard, et al., on Jacobson:

The absence of whole-system simulations from nine of the reviewed studies suggests that many authors and organizations have either not grasped or not tackled explicitly the challenge of ensuring reliable supply from variable sources. . . .  Jacobson et al. [24,113,116] also proposed supply systems without doing simulations, instead referencing other studies to assert that system reliability is possible [8,117,118]. Jacobson et al. [24,113,116] did not apply simulation processes to their own, different proposed systems, nor did they address the uncertainties, challenges and limitations articulated in their supporting references or related critiques . . . .   

Well, good luck with your hallucinations, California!

And here are a couple of more tidbits from the "Conclusions" section:

For the developing world, important progress in human development would be threatened under scenarios applying unrealistic assumptions regarding the scale of energy demand, assumptions that lack historical precedent and fall outside all mainstream forecasts. Other outcomes in sustainability, social justice and social cohesion will also be threatened by pursuing maximal exploitation of high-impact sources like hydro-electricity and biomass, plus expanded transmission networks. The unsubstantiated premise that renewable energy systems alone can solve challenge of climate change risks a repeat of the failure of decades past. The climate change problem is so severe that we cannot afford to eliminate a priori any carbon-free technologies.  

Yes, these guys actually believe that the "climate change problem" is "severe."  But at least they are able to maintain a modicum of critical thinking when seeking to address the "problem."

And finally this:

Our sobering results show that a 100% renewable electricity supply would, at the very least, demand a reinvention of the entire electricity supply-and-demand system to enable renewable supplies to approach the reliability of current systems. This would move humanity away from known, understood and operationally successful systems into uncertain futures with many dependencies for success and unanswered challenges in basic feasibility. 

And with all of that, they never get to the question of cost.  Anyway, believe me, I'm glad to welcome anyone willing to do critical thinking on this subject as an ally.

An Extreme Example Of The Progressive Approach To Public Policy

As noted here many times, the key tenets of the Progressive approach to public policy are (1) total aversion to looking up easily available facts and information, and (2) blind faith that all human problems can be solved with the magic elixir of government taxing and spending.  If we believe something is true, then it must be true; and if it is a problem, we will fix it by throwing taxpayer money at it!

There are way more examples of this than I could ever cover, but today's New York Times (where else?) contains an example that is so extreme as to be just completely ridiculous.  The headline is "Birthrates Fall With Fortunes," and the author is Liz Alderman.  The sub-headline is "Greek Austerity Extends Even to the Cradle."

The article reports on the low fertility rates afflicting several of the countries of Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy), and particularly focuses on Greece.  It seems that after a few years of slight recovery from previously very low levels, the fertility rate in Greece has recently declined again.  Why?  It's the "economic crisis":

As couples grapple with a longer-than-expected stretch of low growth, high unemployment, precarious jobs and financial strain, they are increasingly deciding to have just one child -- or none.

And what's the evidence that the decline in births is caused by economic stagnation and "financial strain"?  Of course, it's anecdotes!  Example:

“People are saying they can’t afford more than one child, or any at all,” Dr. Mastrominas, a director at Embryogenesis, a large in vitro fertilization center, said as videos of gurgling toddlers played in the waiting room. “After eight years of economic stagnation, they’re giving up on their dreams.” . . .  Maria Karaklioumi, 43, a political pollster in Athens, decided to forgo children after concluding she would not be able to offer them the stable future her parents had afforded.

And so forth.  But can we just do a little checking to see if this narrative stands up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny?  Well, not in this article -- remember, it's the New York Times.  However, the spooks at the CIA helpfully provide a country-by-country list of fertility rates for the whole world for 2016.  There's a lot to be learned from just perusing this list for a few minutes.  Examples:

• Although the correlation is not quite perfect, it is completely obvious that fertility rates have a very strong negative correlation with the overall wealth of the country.  That is, with some modest exceptions, the richer the country the lower the fertility rate, and the poorer the country the higher the fertility rate.  In other words, the facts are exactly the opposite of the Pravda narrative.
• The fertility rates of the stagnating Southern European countries are indeed low:  Greece - 1.42; Italy - 1.43; Spain - 1.49; Portugal - 1.53.  ("Replacement" level -- the level needed to keep population from declining -- is about 2.1.)  But then there's the richest large country in Europe, Germany.  Its fertility rate is 1.44.  Austria's rate is 1.47.  Super-wealthy Switzerland, at 1.55, is not really distinguishable from Portugal.
• And what countries in the world have the very, very, very lowest fertility rates?  Yes, it's the richest countries in the world, the Asian city-states.  The lowest rate I can find for any country is Singapore at 0.82.  Hong Kong is not far behind at 1.19.
• The relatively rich major economies of Asia all have low fertility rates, some even lower than the Southern European countries.  Examples:  South Korea - 1.25; Taiwan - 1.12; Japan - 1.41; Thailand - 1.51.  China is substantially poorer, and has somewhat higher fertility at 1.6.
• And where should we look for the very highest fertility rates in the world?  To the very poorest countries, of course, most of them located in sub-Saharan Africa.  The contrasts with the wealthy countries are dramatic.  The highest rate I can find is Niger at 6.62.  Other examples:  Burundi - 6.04; Mali - 5.95; Nigeria - 5.13; Zambia - 5.67; Malawi - 5.54; Mozambique - 5.15.  There are plenty of others.
• And outside of Africa, where will you find the countries with highest fertility rates?  Just look for the very poorest countries.  For example, in Asia, it's Afghanistan (fertility rate: 5.22).  In Latin America, it's Haiti (2.79).

So what is the answer to the problem of low fertility?  This being Pravda, it isn't hard to guess:  tax breaks and subsidies from the state.

The lower birthrates have been aggravated by fiscal pressures that constrained countries from offering robust family support programs. Whereas France offers a monthly family benefit of 130 euros (about $138) per child after the second child, Greece provides just 40 euros. . . .   Italy increased bonuses for having babies and backed labor laws granting more flexible parental leave.  Greece, as the weakest economic link, does not have the same options.  Struggling to manage a recovery after nearly eight years of recession, the government cannot make the fertility drop a top priority. Child tax breaks and subsidies for large families were weakened under Greece’s austerity-linked international financial bailouts.

It really makes you wonder what kind of lavish parental leave and tax breaks they must have in Niger and Burundi! 

Andrew Cuomo And The Progressive Dead End

Back in January, the New York Times was speculating on a potential 2020 presidential run by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and I used the occasion to analyze some of the main programs that Cuomo was putting forward at the time to burnish his "progressive" credentials.  Three months later, we have a new state budget in New York, and now it is the New York Post that is speculating about Cuomo 2020.  The headline is "Cuomo's liberal budget moves hint at presidential bid."

Gov. Cuomo used the state budget process to go shopping for the liberal credentials he’ll need to run for president, Albany insiders said.  As the Assembly on Saturday began passing the bills to implement the state’s late and record-setting $153.1 billion spending plan, Cuomo was already touting his “progressive” largesse.

So here's the big question:  for the prospective candidate for the next Democratic presidential nomination, is there any more to the game than just passing out as much as possible of the infinite free money to buy off left-wing interest groups?  And the answer -- at least as far as you can tell from following Cuomo -- is, no.  Every identifiable new initiative in the state budget is just a handout to one or another of the Democratic Party interest groups.  Don't worry, you're not getting any of the loot.  From the Post:

Appealing to key left-wing constituencies that could help him in a Democratic presidential primary, the governor poured $163 million into a college-scholarship program; gave a $35 million tax break to workers who pay union dues; created a $10 million immigrant legal defense fund; and renewed the millionaire tax.

And how about a few hundred mil specifically going to big Democratic Party donors and fundraisers:

The budget included other goodies popular with Democratic fund-raisers, including the continuation of $445 million in tax credits for film and television — a move praised by Hollywood donors.

On the business development front, the entire idea seems to be, keep taxes high and hand out some of the money to bribe a few favored businesses to come in.  A Post editorial yesterday covers that one under the headline "New York's bribes to businesses are the worst in the nation." The editorial discusses a new report out from the W.E. Upjohn Institute, which has created a data base of state efforts to attract businesses through handouts and subsidies.  Conclusion: The subsidies “are not cost-effective,” with “no statistically significant effects.”

Also weighing in is something called the Investigative Post.  They are teaming up with a group of newspapers (including the New York Daily News and Albany Times Union) and ProPublica to publish a series of articles on the State of Subsidies in New York.  Here's an excerpt from an initial effort in the series that came out on March 26:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has sunk a lot of taxpayer money – $25 billion by his estimate – into recharging upstate’s moribund economy.  The governor has increased spending on subsidy programs to record levels, launched bold policy initiatives and crisscrossed upstate to announced projects he has frequently described as “game-changers.”  “Economic success is shared all across the state. It’s not just New York City that’s doing well, it’s the entire state,” the governor declared in his 2017 State of the State address in Syracuse.  That’s the rhetoric. The reality, as borne out by employment data, is decidedly different.  Employment upstate has grown by only 2.7 percent during Cuomo’s tenure – compared with 13.1 percent downstate and 11 percent nationally. Four of upstate’s 12 major metropolitan areas have actually lost jobs since Cuomo took office.  If it were a state, upstate’s job growth would rank fourth-worst in the nation, below, among others, Mississippi.

How's it going, for example, with the state's plan to jump-start the economy of Buffalo by building a gigantic new factory for the Elon Musk-led SolarCity project?  New York taxpayers have sunk about a billion dollars into just this one initiative, and hold essentially all of the downside risk if the project fails.  Funny, but I can't find any recent information on the opening of the manufacturing facility, which should be well under way by now.  The only article I can find in 2017 is this one from a tech website raising various technical issues that should have been resolved by now.

Don't they have any public policy ideas other than passing out more of the taxpayer money to their friends and supporters?  Well, there is the idea on energy, which is to close down everything that works with no workable plan for a replacement.  Should we maybe be looking to Jerry Brown instead?

Putting A Value On New York City Public Housing

The disaster that is New York City public housing has been covered many times at this site, for example here and here.  But can we quantify the disaster?  How much value -- value that could be used to elevate the poor out of poverty -- is intentionally suppressed by keeping tens of thousands of apartments in socialist-model ownership where they can never be bought or sold or subleased or mortgaged or otherwise turned into usable income of any kind?

Historically, the instinctive answer to the question would be "not much."  When the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) projects were built (mostly in the 1940s through 70s), they were placed in areas that had little to no value in the real estate markets of the time.  That's how they could acquire the land cheaply!  At the time of construction of the projects, almost all of them went into areas in one of three categories: (1) slums, (2) industrial areas in the process of being abandoned with the decline of manufacturing, and (3) waterfront and near-waterfront areas, also in the process of being abandoned with the decline of shipping other than at massive new container ports, which are mostly in New Jersey.

Well, that was then.  Today, there is almost no such thing any more as a classic "slum" in New York City.  (The closest things today to that concept are certain neighborhoods with massive infestations of -- you guessed it -- public housing.  Exhibit A:  Ocean Hill-Brownsville in Brooklyn; Exhibit B:  parts of the South Bronx.)  The large majority of the formerly industrial areas have been transformed into trendy hipster districts where young people move in and turn one-time factories into "lofts."  (Examples: much of Willamsburg, Greenpoint and Red Hook in Brooklyn, Long Island City in Queens, and -- believe it or not -- increasing stretches of the South Bronx.)  And the waterfront?  Those parts of it that were not taken over by public housing when it was in vogue have now been completely transformed by private investment into highest-end housing.  See, for example, the entire Lower West Side of Manhattan from 23rd Street down, the entire Brooklyn waterfront from the Newtown Creek (northern border of Brooklyn) to Cobble Hill, and much of Long Island City and Astoria in Queens.  There are even plans afoot to build new high-end private housing on the waterfront at the southern tip of the South Bronx!

So, do the areas with the public housing remain valueless?  Obviously not.  But until recently it's been tricky to put a precise figure on their value.  The nearest new or upscale private housing would be at least several blocks away, and for anything closer, the proximity to the public housing tended to suppress the value.  

But guess what?  In the past couple of years development pressures have driven new construction closer and closer to the NYCHA projects.  Today there are new condominium developments going up right in the midst of some of the areas of highest concentration of public housing.  And, in the past few months, a couple of those developments have hit the market and started to sell apartments.  The prices give a rather precise estimate of the suppressed potential value of the public housing that is not just across the street, but literally surrounding the new development.

Consider 1399 Park Avenue.  It's at the corner of East 104th Street in Manhattan.  In case the name "Park Avenue" conjures up for you an impression of luxury, you should know that the area of Park Avenue lined with high-end condos and co-ops until recently ended rather abruptly at 96th Street.  That's where the railroad viaduct emerges from its tunnel and becomes elevated.  (All trains that go into Grand Central Terminal -- hundreds per day -- go down this viaduct.  Who wants to live next to an elevated railroad?)  The NYCHA projects start just 3 blocks up at 99th Street, and continue from there.  The first project, known as the Carver Houses, goes from 99th Street to 106th on the West side of Park Avenue, and from 104th Street to 106th on the East side. Here is a link to a map, and below is a picture, looking North from about 100th Street, where you can see some of the project in all its beauty, with the railroad viaduct on the right.

1399 Park Avenue is going right into the middle of this.  It has the Carver houses across the street both to the West and North, not to mention the railroad viaduct.  With that context, you might appreciate the sales blurb from the building's website:

At the crossroads between modern and classic is 1399 Park Avenue. Rising 23 stories, this 72-unit glass and architectural-grade concrete tower takes the best of this prestigious avenue and merges it with a thoroughly modern lifestyle.

Here is a rendering of what the building will look like when finished:

Notice that this view (like every other image of the building I can find) looks Southeast, the only direction you can look without seeing any of the Carver Houses.  Although the building is a long way from finished, sales have begun.  Prices are at the link, averaging around $1,250 per square foot, which would mean about $1.25 million for a standard 1000 sq. ft. 2 bedroom apartment.  Granted, that is cheap by Manhattan standards.  Still, if you put the same per square foot price on the Carver Houses, you get some amazing numbers:  assuming an average of 150,000 sq. ft. for each building of the 14-building complex, the value comes to about $2.6 billion.

But, believe it or not, there is an even more extreme example taking shape on the Lower East Side.  Down there, from just North of the Manhattan Bridge all the way up to East 14th Street, there is an almost-unbroken stretch of about three miles of one NYCHA project after another, around 100 buildings in total.  I say "almost unbroken," because somehow there managed to survive in there a couple of privately-owned plots, one of which contained a one-story supermarket.  Next thing you know, mega-developer Extell had bought that site and proposed putting up a very large (80-story) condominium building literally in the midst of all the projects.  After a few years of community opposition (why?  who knows?) they got construction under way, and now the concrete structure is nearing the top, although completion of the entire building is probably more than a year out.  Nonetheless they have started sales of the building, calling it One Manhattan Square.  This picture from last November gives a good idea of the extent to which this building is completely surrounded by projects (but note that the structure is much taller today):

Prices?  In this case they average around $2500 per square foot.  Hey, it's on the water (or at least close)!  And there's no railroad viaduct next door (just the FDR Drive viaduct between you and the water and also the Manhattan Bridge -- which carries four subway lines plus about a gajillion cars a day -- so close you can almost touch it)!  

What does that mean for the value of the 100 or so NYCHA buildings?  At about 150,000 sq. ft. per building and $2500 per square foot, I get something in the range of $35 - 40 billion.  None of which, in current socialist-model ownership, can be realized upon in any way, shape or form to pay property taxes, or to provide public safety, or to maintain or upgrade the buildings, let alone to elevate their residents from poverty.  It's just tens of billions of dollars down the rathole as far as I can tell.  Frankly, it's criminal.

Let me also remark on a couple of relevant newspaper articles.  In today's New York Post, Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City (the great and the good!) has an op-ed reporting on a meeting last week of some 50 New York business leaders with President Trump.  The idea behind the meeting was to convince (lobby) Trump to maintain funding for New York City priorities in his budget.  What priorities?  Well, "priorities like public housing . . ."  That's as far as I got.  Is it any wonder that the rest of the country thinks that New Yorkers are idiots?

Or there's the article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal reporting on the failing program in South Africa to build public housing for the legions of extremely poor people in that country (sorry, it's behind a paywall).  The subject of the article is one Patricia Makhetha, whose publicly-owned house remains half-built and unusable after more than five years of supposed construction.

The party of Nelson Mandela has sought to radically transform the South African economy through affirmative action and extensive social policies, including a housing program whose annual budget has climbed above 30 billion rand ($2.15 billion).  But the ANC’s ambitions have been undermined by allegations of corruption and patronage and controversies have consumed the presidency of ANC leader Jacob Zuma . . . .  

That's right, they chose to copy our very stupidest public policy, socialist-model public housing.  And it has failed disastrously.  Surprise!  The poor will remain poor.  Can somebody tell them that all they need to do is provide for private ownership of the property and the homes will magically appear without any need for government involvement, and meanwhile the poor people will start to build equity and move into the middle class?   Or do we now need to send everyone to a "safe space" before we can utter such words?

It's Time For EPA To Reconsider And Rescind The Endangerment Finding

Hopefully, most readers here have heard of EPA's Endangerment Finding.  If you haven't, here's the background.  During the Bush 43 administration, a group of "blue" states, led by Massachusetts, petitioned the EPA to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act.  When EPA did not do that, those states sued to compel the agency to regulate, and in 2007 the case reached the Supreme Court.  In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supremes held that EPA should make a determination as to whether atmospheric CO2 poses a "danger" to human health and welfare, and, if it does, should regulate it.  When the Obama administration arrived in 2009, it got right to work on the project.  In December 2009 Obama's EPA issued the Endangerment Finding, determining, to no one's surprise, that CO2 in the atmosphere does indeed pose a "danger" to human health and welfare.  The Endangerment Finding is the legal foundation on which all subsequent Obama-era regulation of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" rests.  These regulations include, as a leading example, the so-called "Clean Power Plan," that seeks to shutter all coal electricity generation in the U.S.

Since issuance of the Endangerment Finding (and, indeed, even before, during the public comment period) many criticized EPA's Finding as lacking in scientific basis.  (Bizarrely, EPA asserted in its supporting documentation that the evidentiary basis for the "finding" consists mostly of models of how it thinks the atmospheric heat transfer system works.  In other words, EPA claimed to use its hypothesis as the principal proof of the hypothesis.  Yes, these are people who purport to lecture others on "science.")  Seven and a half ensuing years of temperatures failing to rise as predicted have left the Endangerment Finding sitting on increasingly weak ground.  In September 2016, a distinguished group of scientists published a major Research Report asserting that all of the "lines of evidence" claimed by EPA to support the Endangerment Finding had been scientifically invalidated by the empirical data.  That Research Report was covered here on September 19, 2016, in a post titled "The 'Science' Underlying Climate Alarmism Turns Up Missing."  That post is one of the most-read posts ever published on this blog.

Obviously, no matter how ridiculous this might become, the Obama administration was not going to change direction.  But now we have a new President, committed to undoing counterproductive and job-destroying environmental regulations.  On January 20 a group called the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council petitioned EPA to undo the Endangerment Finding.  Full disclosure:  I am one of the lawyers for the Council.  Here is a copy of the Petition.  The Petition is substantially based on the conclusions of the Research Report as to the scientific invalidation of the Endangerment Finding.  The Research Report was also a big part of the basis for John Christy's testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology on March 29, reported on by me here.  (Dr. Christy is one of the co-authors of the Research Report.)

You will see in our Petition and Research Report that this is the essence of the scientific enterprise.  Does the best empirical evidence from the real world support or refute the hypothesis?  We assert that EPA's hypothesis of "endangerment" has been refuted; but any scientist (or for that matter, any non-scientist) can seek to replicate and/or refute the results of the Research Report.  The authors of the Report, and of the Petition (who include yours truly) do not engage in any name-calling or ad hominem attacks on those who might disagree.  Rather, we challenge them to refute our results or, if they can't, to concede that there exists no basis for the Endangerment Finding, nor for the restrictions on fossil fuels that the Obama administration was seeking to impose.

When President Trump issued his Executive Order on March 28, ordering reconsideration of the Obama-era climate regulations, it included no specific reference to the Endangerment Finding, nor specific direction that the Finding be reconsidered.  Yesterday, our group issued a press release, seeking to get some more distribution for our Petition, and to raise awareness of the importance of the Endangerment Finding and of its reconsideration.

There has been some favorable coverage of our Petition at the Daily Caller  (Michael Bastasch), and at Breitbart (James Delingpole).  From Bastasch:

Two groups — Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council (CHECC) — claim EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” should be updated with new evidence invalidating the agency’s previous claim greenhouse gasses threatened public health. . . .   CHECC sent its petition to EPA Jan. 20, during Trump’s inauguration. CHECC is only now publicizing this, along with CEI, to urge the Trump administration to re-examine the endangerment finding now that the president issued an executive order to rolling back Obama-era global warming policies.  CHECC’s petition relies on a 2016 study that “failed to find that the steadily rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series data analyzed.”

More bizarre has been the reaction from the mainstream press and environmental activists.  Most have ignored us, of course.  But those who have not choose, as always, to avoid any attempt to deal with the scientific results on the merits, or on their own terms.  Instead, it's non-stop name calling and ad hominem attacks.  For example, a series of tweets from a guy named John Walke of the NRDC included these gems:

Telling insight into panic, rage & pathos of climate change deniers realizing they're outliers even in Trump admin.

Hard right-wingers mount furious & futile assault on climate science & legal obligation to reduce carbon pollution.  

"Panic, rage & pathos"?  Really?  Have you read the Petition?  (He's hoping you won't either.  Please do read it.). And meanwhile, John, can you explain why the hypothesis (of dangerous man-made global warming) has not been refuted by the evidence?

At the Washington Post, the article by Seth Borenstein of AP on March 29 (following John Christy's testimony that presented the results of the Research Report) is headlined "U.S. hearing on climate science focuses on name calling."   Again, Borenstein does not so much as reference the Research Report, nor attempt to deal with the scientific merits of its conclusions.  Funny, but I've read John Christy's testimony, and I can't find any name calling.  It's an extremely dispassionate statement of the scientific evidence and how the evidence does not conform to the hypothesis represented by the mainstream climate models.  Name calling is something different.  It is what Mr. Walke does, quoted above.

For the eight years of the Obama administration, the orthodox side of the climate controversy has been able, through control of government funding and processes, to suppress essentially all scientific debate on this subject,  and to silence adversaries.  Now it's time for name-calling to end and the science to be engaged.  EPA is in a position to force real engagement on the science by reopening the Endangerment Finding for reconsideration.  It is high time for that effort to begin.   

A Few Places Where Justice Gorsuch Can Make A Difference

You may be surprised to learn that, even in these highly contentious times, the U.S. Supreme Court decides about half or more of its cases unanimously.  For example, from the New York Times, July 3, 2014:

The court is indeed often united, and it will end this term with unanimous decisions in more than half of its cases. Over the past four terms, even the members of the court least likely to agree voted together 66 percent of the time.

But those unanimous decisions tend to be the ones that few people care about and that don't make the front pages of the newspapers.  Then there are the cases that go to the essence of our Constitution and the nature of our government.  To pose the key question:  Is the United States a country that is run by the government, or is it a country that is run by the people?  If you were to read the Constitution or the Federalist Papers you would very likely come away with a strong impression that the whole idea is that the country is to be run by the people rather than by the government.  Yet, in recent years (up to the death of Justice Scalia) when a case posed an issue related to that fundamental question, the result was very often decided by a vote of 5 to 4.  And when it was 5 to 4, almost always the four liberals and four conservatives would both vote as blocs, leaving Anthony Kennedy as the mostly-but-not-reliably-conservative swing vote.  

The overriding philosophy of the "liberal" bloc has been discussed many times on this blog, and there is nothing complicated about it.  The basic concept is that the government consists of neutral, apolitical experts whose job it is to move us all towards greater and then perfect justice and fairness through the magic of more and more laws, rules and regulations.  The neutral experts must be given full authority and discretion to rule over the people in order to complete this project.  Obviously the government must run the country, because otherwise there would be chaos!  Or, even worse, unfairness! 

In case you don't keep track of these things, you might find interesting a little mini-roundup of a few of the big issues that split clearly along the ideological divide.

First Amendment/Citizens United.  One of the provisions of the so-called Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (often referred to as "McCain-Feingold") made it illegal for corporations and unions to use their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech that expressly advocated for the election or defeat of a candidate in an election.  The idea was to move toward the perfect justice and fairness by "getting money out of politics."  A federal bureaucracy (the Federal Election Commission) would do away with the chaotic free-for-all of free speech and replace it with government say-so as to who could say what and when.  The Supreme Court struck that down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment in the 2010 case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.   It was a 5 to 4 decision, with all of the "liberals" of the time (Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor) in dissent.

Ever since the decision came out, overturning it has been a priority for the Left -- and for the "liberal" bloc of the Court.  Hillary Clinton promised in her campaign to introduce a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United during her first ten days in office.  It was never clear that a constitutional amendment would actually be necessary, since all she really needed was one Supreme Court appointment to deep six the case for good.  In a widely-publicized interview that appeared in the New York Times on July 10, 2016, Justice Ginsburg was quoted as saying "I'd love to see Citizens United overturned."

Perhaps, given the huge fund-raising advantage that Hillary had over Donald Trump in the recent election, you are wondering why it is a priority for the Left to eliminate corporate financial involvement in elections.  It appears that the game is to silence all opposition -- or at least all well-funded opposition -- while assuming that the complete control of the press and of academia will enable the progressive message to get out in all circumstances.  But do they understand that all of the newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post) and broadcast media (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC) are organized as corporations?  This could have become a huge issue if, for example, Merrick Garland had made it onto the Court.  Now, it will likely just go away.

Second Amendment/Heller.  Under a constitutional amendment that reads (in part) "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," can a state or local government make it illegal in some or all circumstances for citizens to own firearms?  It is not surprising that views as to the answer to that question break down along ideological lines.  What is somewhat more surprising is that "liberal" legal academics and judges can convince themselves, in the face of the language of the Second Amendment, that severe restrictions that essentially eliminate legal private firearms possession are no problem.  The belief that the all-knowing bureaucrats can perfect the world if only given enough power is so strong that seemingly intelligent people are able to find ways to avoid remarkably clear and definitive language written into the Constitution itself.

The Heller case of 2008 was the one in which the Supreme Court decided that the right to "keep and bear arms" was a personal one that belonged to the people.  The vote was 5 to 4.  All of the "liberals" of the time (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer) voted as a bloc.  Merrick Garland, or any Hillary Clinton appointee, would immediately have overturned this one.  Now the precedent is safe for a while.

Commerce Clause/Lopez.  Perhaps the most famous quote from the Federalist Papers is that from Madison's #45: 

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.  

I won't delve here into the steps by which the federal government slipped the ties of its "enumerated powers," most notably Wickard v. Filburn of 1942.  But are there today any limits at all on federal powers?  The most relevant Supreme Court case is United States v. Lopez of 1995.  Again, it was a 5 to 4 decision, with all of the "liberals" of the time (Breyer, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg) dissenting.

At issue in the case was the constitutionality of the federal "Gun Free Schools" act, by which Congress had purported to make possession of a firearm near a school into a federal crime.  Could there be any subject farther removed from the "few and defined" powers granted to Congress by the Constitution?  Lopez challenged whether Congress had authority to legislate in this area.  The majority of 5 held that it did not.  But Justice Breyer, in dissent, articulated a rationale under which the constitutional limits on Congressional powers become completely meaningless:

Could Congress rationally have found that "violent crime in school zones," through its effect on the "quality of education," significantly (or substantially) affects "interstate" or "foreign commerce"? 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G). As long as one views the commerce connection, not as a "technical legal conception," but as "a practical one," Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 398 (1905) (Holmes, J.), the answer to this question must be yes.

While they won't quite say so directly, it is absolutely clear that all Supreme Court justices of the liberal bloc will find a way, in any given case, to support the power of Congress to legislate under the Constitution, no matter how remote the subject at hand may be from the enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8.

So, if you were hoping for the achievement of new heights in perfect justice and fairness through more laws, rules and regulations, you are probably very disappointed that it was Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton who got to make this Supreme Court appointment.  If you like the Constitution as written, you probably like Gorsuch.