Chris Mooney | So Now They Call in the Scientists?

My view is that it’s certainly better to hear from scientists than not to hear from them—but “science fight” hearings are rarely very enlightening. Some members of the media, the Congress, and the public are able to parse the flurry of claims and counterclaims. But most walk away with the impression that there’s a big “debate” and a lot of “uncertainty.”

So I guess my conclusion is, “two cheers” for the latest hearing. With so much climate skepticism and denial in the current Congress, it’s probably the best you are going to get.

Green Math: Let’s Spend a Billion to Save $8 Million « NoFrakkingConsensus

…Eisenberg’s cost estimates for taking the nine campuses off the grid ranged as high as $975 million — this for a college system that in 2010 spent less than $8 million on power bills.

…Eisenberg wanted to spend $98 million on hydrogen fuel-cell equipment that had never been put into commercial operation. He called for spending $59 million on untried hydrogen storage devices…

Strassel: Obama's Gas Price Migraine - WSJ.com

An immutable fact of expensive gasoline: Americans will find someone to blame. We can expect in coming months to hear many sober analysts attempt to explain the complex reasons for rising oil prices: inflation, Middle East tremors, growing demand. Expect, too, for all those reasons to vanish behind what most Americans will see as the far more obvious (and graspable) cause: President Obama's regulatory assault on domestic oil and gas production.

This is, after all, a White House that has put at the center of its domestic agenda its goal of a "green economy," which hinges on making fossil fuels too expensive for Americans to purchase. In January 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Steven Chu, now Secretary of Energy, told this newspaper in the same year: "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." That would be, oh, $10 a gallon.