Bookworm Room » Idle Sunday thought

The global warmists invest us with the power to change, not just our immediate environment, but the entire earth, in one flew swoop. As to that, I think there is some serious overreaching, as evidenced by the need to change the numbers to make the point. And this being Sunday, I wondered if the overreaching doesn’t come about, in part, because people who don’t believe in a God somehow see themselves as larger and more powerful than religious people do.

Legal Scholarship Blog: Climate Policy for the Obama Administration

Washington and Lee University School of Law’s Journal of Energy, Climate, and Environment and its Environmental Law Society are hosting their inaugural symposium, Climate Policy for the Obama Adminstration this Friday, February 20. This interdisciplinary symposium, which will be held one month after the Obama Administration takes office, will assess the Administration’s initial steps on climate change and reflect on the road ahead. Our aim is to not only provide interesting academic discussion, but also to produce a policy assessment that might be useful to those advising the new Administration. Panels will focus on managing scientific and policy uncertainty, addressing complexities of scale, reconceptualizing energy policy, and achieving greater justice. A number of presenters will participate remotely to reduce the carbon footprint of the conference. The event is free and open to the public. For more details, please see the symposium website.

Heliogenic Climate Change: Renewable mandates "a stealth tax scheme"

"The Carbon Sense Coalition’s response to the draft Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2008 makes the following conclusions (among others):

* There are no climate benefits in mandating ever increasing shares of the electricity market for “renewable” energy. Therefore any scheme to generate electricity should stand on its own feet with no special tax breaks, subsidies or mandated market shares to support it.
* All of this also leads to the conclusion that mandating market shares for “renewable energy” is not justified. This is just a sneaky way to impose taxes on conventional electricity generators in a way that most consumers will not notice. It is part of a deliberate Stealth Tax Scheme. It will stifle growth and deter economic recovery.
* Mandated market shares are incompatible with the logic (if there is any) of Emission Trading Schemes or carbon taxes.

Read the stealth-taxes.pdf full submission [PDF, 184 KB]"