Keith’s Science Trick, Mike’s Nature Trick and Phil’s Combo « Climate Audit

Mike’s Nature Trick and Keith’s Science Trick are two different tricks. Neither practice should be condoned. If I were judging the two as a sort of reverse beauty contest, I would rank Keith’s Science Trick as the most unacceptable.

NC Media Watch: Over e-mail transom: PG&E -- Rent seeking for climate change.

Here is the latest from PG&E wanting to raise my bill $5.00 a month to prevent climate change. I thought they had raised my bill enough already to pay for my SmartMeter and to pay for their transition to CARB mandated renewable energy.

Unscientific American

Now, it might or might not be true that China is spending more than the U.S. on clean energy. The ruling Communist government is not known for openness and transparency, so I take “official” investment data with a grain of salt. However, it is unequivocal that the Chinese are building coal power plants at an unprecedented rate. Estimates vary, from 4 new coal plants every week to 1 plant every week. All we know for sure is that coal, and not renewable energy, is powering the Middle Kingdom’s meteoric economic growth. This is why China, which became the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases only three years ago, now has a carbon footprint 40 percent bigger than the next largest emitter (the United States).

The task of science is to present the truth, no matter how it might offend one’s sensibilities. By highlighting only China’s clean energy investment, Scientific American’s presents an unscientific half truth. It then compounds this error by making a policy recommendation (“Stepping up U.S. investment [in renewable energy] could enhance the country’s competitiveness…”) based on this half truth. The whole truth is that China’s competitiveness is predicated on its building coal power faster than has ever been done in human history.