July 15, 2022

In The UK, Some Political Movement On The Climate Scare

July 15, 2022/ Francis Menton

It has long been my view that the whole climate scare thing will fade away and disappear once the costs and risks of the insane zero carbon agenda become clear to the voting public. As much as I’ve been deeply involved in efforts to expose the fake “science” behind the scare, the science arguments so far have had very little success in convincing anyone, particularly anyone (and this is most people) who is subject to appeals to fear.
But now, over in the UK, the costs and risks of pursuing an aggressive “climate” agenda are starting to hit home. And with the selection of a new Prime Minister now getting started, we can see the first glimmerings of political impact.
You might think that, since I am on the board of an organization that is an affiliate of a group based in the UK, I might have some special insights on where the PM race is going. In fact, what my UK contacts tell me is that the PM race is wide open, and anything could happen.
But there is one remarkable thing, which is that suddenly it is no longer disqualifying to express skepticism about green orthodoxy.

July 11, 2022

Federalism Is The Key To Demonstrating The Disaster Of Green Central Planning

July 11, 2022/ Francis Menton

Central planning always fails, but the utopian visionaries implementing the plans cannot admit that they are at fault. A scapegoat must be found. As a leading example, when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture led to mass starvation, the official blame was placed on “saboteurs” and “wreckers.”
Our current-day analog is the centrally-planned replacement of our very large, inexpensive and highly functional energy system, mostly based on fossil fuels, with the alternatives of intermittent wind and sun-based generation, as favored by incompetent government regulators who don’t understand how these things work or how much they will cost. Prices of energy to the consumer — from electricity to gasoline — are soaring; and reliability of supply is widely threatened.
All of which brings our President forth to blame the current price and supply issues in the energy markets on anything but his own administration’s intentional efforts to suppress the functional fossil fuel energy.

July 08, 2022

July 08, 2022/ Francis Menton

Last Thursday, June 30, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that, absent a further explicit statute from the Congress, the EPA did not have the authority to orchestrate its planned fundamental restructuring of the electric power generation sector of the economy.
More generally, the Supreme Court stated that in cases involving “major questions,” including regulations that affect large portions of the economy, the government must demonstrate “clear congressional authorization” to support a sweeping effort to regulate.
Do you think that such a Supreme Court decision might cause the various regulatory bureaucracies to slow down and reconsider a little before plowing ahead with other dubious plans for fundamental economic restructurings?
That’s not how these bureaucracies work. And such is most particularly the case with regard to regulators of the energy sector, sometimes known as “climate change” arena.

July 05, 2022

July 05, 2022/ Francis Menton

Probably you think that the justices sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court must be among the most intelligent people in the country. Granted, the mainstream press spends a lot of time denigrating the intelligence of the conservative justices. But surely then, the liberal justices must be really, really smart.
Consider Justice Elena Kagan. She was the Dean of the Harvard Law School. Then she became the Solicitor General of the United States. That’s the person in charge of arguing the government’s positions in the Supreme Court. You need to be really smart to do that job.
So if you’re looking for someone who can teach you the thinking processes of the very smartest of the smart, there is no one better to look to than Elena Kagan.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Justice Kagan’s dissent on behalf of the three liberal justices in the case of West Virginia v. EPA that came out just last week.

July 01, 2022

July 01, 2022/ Francis Menton

It’s been a momentous couple of weeks at the Supreme Court. As usual, they saved the big cases for the end. This year the big three were Bruen (gun rights), Dobbs (abortion rights) and West Virginia (administrative regulation of CO2).
All three cases were decided 6-3 along ideological lines.
These cases involved the most basic issues of what the Constitution is and how it is to be interpreted. On those issues there is virtually no hope of one side ever convincing anyone from the other side. There just are two fundamentally irreconcilable visions of how this should work.
The two visions can be summarized in just a few sentences each:

June 29, 2022

June 29, 2022/ Francis Menton

Just over six months ago, in December 2021, I asked the question that was on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject of the ongoing massive “green” transition to fossil-fuel-free energy. Actually, that’s a lie. The question I asked was not on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject, or even of most of the people who follow the subject, for reasons that to me are completely inexplicable.
The question was : “Which Country Or U.S. State Will Be The First To Hit The Green Energy Wall?”
The candidates that I nominated in that post as potentially the first to hit the “green energy wall” were California, New York, the UK and Germany. At the time, I thought it was obvious that one of those jurisdictions would hit the wall sooner than almost anybody expected. Indeed, I was quite bold in the short time frame that I predicted:
A prolonged period of unfavorable weather (calm and overcast) could cause a serious energy crunch to hit one or both of Germany or the UK as soon as this winter. Or they could get lucky and go another year or two.
Now here we are in June 2022, and I think it’s hard to deny that Germany has in fact hit the “green energy wall.”