The New York Times Shows Democrats How To Run On "Energy Affordability"

/
The New York Times Shows Democrats How To Run On "Energy Affordability"

  • In my post of October 7, I asked “How Can Democrats Possibly Run On Affordability?” The post specifically focused on energy affordability, and on consumer electricity prices, because, for reasons that I don’t understand, the price of electricity seems to be a big issue for Democrats in the upcoming elections.

  • The post cited easily-available data from the federal Energy Information Administration showing that, among the contiguous 48 states, there is a sharp divide between states run by Democrats — which have the highest prices — and those run by Republicans — which have the lowest prices. The six states with the highest prices consist of California plus five Northeastern states that have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in an effort to intentionally drive up their consumer electricity prices. The twelve states with the lowest prices are all solidly Republican with the sole exception of purple Nevada (where the Governor is a Republican). Prices per kWh in climate-obsessed California and the Northeast are double and more the prices in many Republican-run states. If you study the issue even a little, it becomes obvious that the higher prices in the blue states are driven in part by higher taxes and more regulations, but particularly by so-called “climate” policies that in practice greatly drive up costs.

  • So how can you possibly turn this into an issue that somehow favors Democrats in the election on the issue of “affordability”? For the answer, I take you to the front page of yesterday’s print New York Times. . . .

Read More

When Ignorant Ideologues Take Control Of Major Economic Decisions

/

  • As previously mentioned, I have been reading Frank Dikötter’s trilogy on the history of China during its years under the rule of Mao Zedong (1949-76). Of the three books, the one covering the middle years of 1958-62 is titled “Mao’s Great Famine.” The name given by Mao and his gang to these years was “The Great Leap Forward.”

  • The story told in this book is the sort of critically important and easily-available information about how the real world works that all our newly-minted elite college graduates have somehow missed. The short version is that a clique of political ideologues with zero knowledge of how things are actually produced takes control of making the major economic decisions. They have what they think are brilliant ideas about how to transform the economy and do everything better. In short order, output collapses and people are starving.

  • It is impossible not to notice the close analogy between the events that led to China’s catastrophe and the ongoing energy disaster being imposed on various U.S. states and other Western countries by an equally ignorant clique of political ideologues.

Read More

Hurricane Isaias: The Data Are In

/
Hurricane Isaias: The Data Are In

  • We finally had our first hurricane this season in the North Atlantic region: Isaias. Isaias formed on October 7 as a tropical storm in the Gulf of America, and made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on October 10 near Destin, Florida.

  • Paul Homewood of Not a Lot of People Know That collects the relevant data in a post from October 11.

  • Homewood notes that Isaias represents the latest ever first hurricane for the North Atlantic, at least since the satellite era (1966) has provided full data:

Read More

On The Criteria For Falsifying A Scientific Hypothesis

/
On The Criteria For Falsifying A Scientific Hypothesis

  • My September 29 post asked whether we could deem as “definitively falsified” the hypothesis that human-caused global warming was leading to “more and more severe” hurricanes.

  • The cited basis for the question was that, despite the endlessly repeated prediction of “more and more severe” hurricanes, as of that date not a single hurricane had yet formed this season in the North Atlantic basin. This represented a record-low rate of hurricane formation in this region since the satellite era, and comprehensive hurricane data, began in 1966.

  • In response to that post, I received a comment from a reader that I thought deserved a serious response. The comment came as an email, rather than as a comment on the blog. The commenter gave his name, but since he did not post the comment on the blog I am keeping his name confidential as a courtesy. Here is the text of the comment: . . .

Read More

"More And More Severe Storms": When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?

/
"More And More Severe Storms": When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?

  • You know the mantra: Human caused climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, causes an increase in the frequency and severity of major storms, like hurricanes.

  • When major hurricanes come along, as they regularly do, the promoters of this mantra immediately claim an ability to “attribute” the storm and/or its intensity to the ongoing human-caused warming.

  • For example, last October we had Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that struck Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. As soon as Melissa had passed, an organization calling itself World Weather Attribution promptly came out with an analysis blaming the storm and its intensity on “climate change.” From the AP, November 6, 2025:

  • Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. . . . The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall near the center of the storm 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared to a pre-industrial world.

  • Perhaps that seemed plausible at the time. But this year the mantra that human-induced climate change is the main cause of destructive hurricanes has run into a small problem.

Read More

Energy Affordability: An IQ Test For New Yorkers That They Will Very Likely Fail

/

  • Here in New York, our very-light-weight Governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election. To her slight credit, she has noticed that New York is a high cost state, not the least for cost of energy, and that New Yorkers are upset about that.

  • New Yorkers are right to be upset about the cost of energy. According to this chart from the federal EIA containing most recent data for July 2026, the average price of electricity to the ultimate consumer in New York for that month was 29.9¢/kWh, compared to a national average of 18.31¢/kWh; and New York’s cost had increased more than 14% from 26.22¢/kWh in July 2025, versus a 4.9% increase in the national average over last year’s 17.45¢/kWh. New Yorkers are also right to be upset because the premium they pay for electricity is mostly to entirely the consequence of intentional government policies that drive up the cost.

  • What’s crazy is that Governor Hochul has decided to make “energy affordability” a theme of her campaign. The reason that is crazy is that at the same time that Hochul claims she favors more “affordability,” she also brags about maintaining and expanding the very policies that have caused the excess costs.

Read More