In October, I posted on the opposition by environmentalists to solar energy projects in California’s Mojave Desert. I mentioned that California Senator Dianne Feinstein was planning to bolster that opposition with legislation.
The Climategate documents — the hundreds of emails and other data hacked from the Climatic Research Unit of England’s East Anglia University — have exposed serious breaches of scientific integrity. They contain evidence of collusion among a small but highly influential group of climate researchers to suppress and even delete key data, to manipulate the scientific peer-review process, to exclude the work of dissenting scientists, and allegedly to evade Freedom of Information requests by destroying requested materials.
One argument sometimes heard in favor of green energy is that sources such as wind and solar are “free, forever.” Al Gore, in particular, has said repeatedly that to end our “overdependence on outdated, heavily polluting carbon-based technologies . . . we need sources that are free forever, like the sun, wind and earth.”
Environmentalists claim, with ever-increasing hysteria, that our consumption of carbon-based energy in pursuit of prosperity and economic growth is altering the earth’s climate. Human survival, they insist, requires the immediate abandonment of fossil fuels, which provide more than 80 percent of the world’s energy, in favor of carbon-free sources.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on “small hydro” projects—hydroelectric power plants involving small dams on streams and tributaries, as opposed to giant dams on major rivers. Because hydro produces zero greenhouse gas emissions, these projects are being promoted by power companies hoping to avoid the fierce green opposition to carbon-based energy.
Recall that reusable bags were supposed to be the green, “eco-friendly” solution to the alleged paper-or-plastic conundrum–the fact that paper bag manufacturing kills trees, while plastic bags clog landfills. But now the solution apparently needs a solution.
Whenever I make the point–in speaking and writing on climate policy–that green restrictions on carbon emissions would require a massive and economically devastating reduction in our use of energy, I am always confronted by the objection that I am ignoring “alternative energy.”
