Category Archives: waste

Howard Fineman And Energy Policy – The right wing loves coal

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The Left wing hates coal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36132029/ns/politics-howard_fineman/

Obama’s energy challenge is coal, not oil

45 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants

By Howard Fineman

msnbc.com msnbc.com
updated 4/14/2010 10:09:22 AM ET 2010-04-14T14:09:22
ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama touched off a new environmental skirmish with his decision to open vast new areas of the American coastline to offshore oil drilling. But as loud as that battle is going to get, it is nothing compared with the real energy war to come.

I speak, of course, of the Coal War.

Forget whatever else you hear about energy policy, the real fight — and the real political problem — this year in Congress will be how to deal with our nagging reliance on the most abundant component of our carbon-based patrimony.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about offshore drilling, wind power, natural gas, and energy conservation … but the short-term drift of history still dictates a heavy reliance on the dirtiest and deadliest of all fuels: coal.

The big question in the energy bill — if there is one — is how and whether Congress will ask the American people to pay for the cost of controlling the environmental consequences of that reliance.

At its core, the president’s energy vision calls for switching our transportation system from oil to plug-in electricity. But 45 percent of all electricity in the country is still generated by coal-fired power plants. In other words, we run the real risk of merely replacing one polluting and increasingly scarce fuel, petroleum, with an abundant but even more environmentally troublesome one, coal.

An energy bill that, among other things, would tax pollution caused by burning fossil fuels was passed by the House last year. It’s gotten nowhere in the Senate. Obama’s drilling announcement was designed to get the Senate’s attention — and garner some Republican support.

But opening up offshore drilling prospects is politically, the easy part. I think the president can get that piece of the puzzle.

The hard part is going to be convincing senators from coal-producing and/or electricity-exporting states to go along with any sort of carbon tax.

States with power plants that generate electricity from coal read like a roster of presidential swing states. Among them: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina. And other states with major coal commitments include: Georgia, Arizona, Kentucky and Wyoming.

Getting 60 votes for some kind of carbon-pollution tax, even if it’s in the most attenuated “cap-and-trade” form, will be next to impossible.

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Go read the rest. It is pretty good. Everyone have a great weekend. More next week.

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Hendrik Hertzberg And Energy Policy – Seems pretty neutral to me

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What struck me the most about the posts and the material the right wing columnists produced was how consistently it was industry biased and really right wing sentiment. What is striking about the left wingers is how balanced they appear. Of course as far as I am concerned Ted Rall is the biggest lefty around in print and he made NEITHER list that I have been using. Never actually heard of this guy but then I don’t get out much.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/22/100322taco_talk_hertzberg

Some Nukes

by Hendrik Hertzberg March 22, 2010

(dot dot dot)

There has always been something intuitively disproportionate about nuclear power plants, which, like coal-fired ones, use steam turbines to generate electricity. Converting mass to energy by atomic fission in order to achieve temperatures normally found only on the surface of stars like the sun and then using that extraterrestrial heat to boil water—well, it smacks of (to borrow a term from the nuclear dark side) overkill. To be fair, boiling water by burning black rocks made of petrified vegetable matter from the age of the dinosaurs is a little strange, too. And nuclear power plants have one great advantage over the fossil-fuel kind: they do not emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is hastening the world toward climatic disruption and disaster.

President Obama, in his State of the Union address, after talking up innovations in battery technology and solar panels, said, “To create more of these clean-energy jobs we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” Last month, he backed that up with a federal loan guarantee of $8.3 billion to build two new reactors near Waynesboro, Georgia. And in his budget request for 2011 he has asked for $46 billion more. The applause

for his State of the Union line was louder on the Republican side of the aisle than on the Democratic, and his words and actions have prompted loud grumbling from environmental organizations. But global warming has punched some holes in the green wall. Such founding fathers of the environmental movement as Stewart Brand, the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, an early stalwart of Greenpeace, now support nukes. James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a climate-change prophet, favors the so-called fourth-generation nuclear systems, which would substantially reduce the amount of nuclear waste. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, is another supporter. So, within limits, are liberal senators like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. And so is President Obama.

“We were hopeful last year—he was saying all the right things,” Erich Pica, the president of Friends of the Earth, said after Obama’s loan-guarantee announcement. “But now he has become a full-blown nuclear-power proponent—a startling change over the past few months.” Actually, Obama has been a nuclear-power proponent ever since he was a state legislator, but in the context of an energy regime that underwrites conservation, promotes renewables like wind and solar, and, crucially, puts a price on carbon. Nuclear power plants are unbelievably expensive to build, but once they are up and running the electricity they generate is cheap to produce. In the United States, coal plants (there are six hundred of them, as against a hundred nuclear ones) get a kind of subsidy, too, and it’s huge: the right to dispose of their most dangerous waste by sending it up the chimney, free of charge.
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Please see the rest of article for a great summary of the past and a largely noncommital ending. More tomorrow.

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Newt Gingrich And Energy Policy – For energy advice he calls his mother and his daughter

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OK I can only take this for another day and I am done. These guys really do not know what they are talking about. They make up numbers that have no basis in this universe, and the reality is they only survive because they take huge amounts of industry money.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Newt_Gingrich_Energy_+_Oil.htm

Newt Gingrich on Energy & Oil

Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House

Kyoto treaty is bad for the environment and bad for America

Kyoto is a bad treaty. It is bad for the environment and it is bad for America. It sets standards that will require massive investments by the US but virtually no investments by other countries. The Senate was right when it voted unanimously against the treaty. We should insist on revisiting the entire Kyoto process and resolutely reject efforts to force us into an anti-American, environmentally failed treaty.

The US should support substantial research into climate science, managing the response to climate change, & in developing new non-carbon energy systems. It is astounding to watch people blithely propose trillions of dollars in spending on a topic on which we have failed to spend modest amounts to better understand.

It is astounding to have people focus myopically on carbon as the sole source of climate change. The world’s climate has changed in the past with sudden speed and dramatic impact. Global warming may happen. On the other hand it is possible Europe will experience another ice age.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Focus on incentives for conservation & renewable resources

A sound American energy policy would focus on four areas: basic research to create a new energy system that has few environmental side effects, incentives for conservation, more renewable resources, and environmentally sound development of fossil fuels. The Bush administration has approached energy environmentalism the right way, including using public-private partnerships that balance economic costs and environmental gain.

Hydrogen has the potential to provide energy that has no environmental downside. Conservation is the second great opportunity in energy. A tax credit to subsidize energy efficient cars (including a tax credit for turning in old and heavily polluting cars) is another idea we should support. Renewable resources are gradually evolving to meet their potential: from wind generator farms to solar power to biomass conversion. Continued tax credits and other advantages for renewable resources are a must.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Stop scare tactics about drilling in Alaska

It is time for an honest debate about drilling and producing in places like Alaska, our national forests, and off the coast of scenic areas. The Left uses scare tactics from a different era to block environmentally sound production of raw materials. Three standards should break through this deadlock.

  1. Scientists of impeccable background should help set the standards for sustaining the environment in sensitive areas, and any company entering the areas should be bonded to meet those standards.
  2. The public should be informed about new methods of production that can meet the environmental standards, and any development should be only with those new methods.
  3. A percentage of the revenues from resources generated in environmentally sensitive areas should be dedicated to environmental activities including biodiversity sustainment, land acquisition, and environmental cleanups in places where there are no private resources that can be used to clean up past problems.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Gas tax sounds OK in DC, but not outside Beltway

When the Bush Administration tried to convince me that a gasoline tax increase would be okay and would barely be noticed, I tested the theory with two phone calls. First I called my mother-in-law in Leetonia, Ohio, and then I called my older daughter in Greensboro, North Carolina. My mother-in-law is retired, at the time, aged 75. She has a lot of friends who live on limited incomes, and driving happens to be one of their pleasures. She was personally against the idea of a gas tax increase, and she thought the idea would go down very badly with her friends. Then I called my daughter Kathy. She runs a small business, and her husband is the tennis coach at the university. Her reaction was, to put it mildly, scathing. “What planet do they live on?” she asked. She thought such a tax increase was the very antithesis of why people had elected the Republicans. After those two conversations, any doubts I may have had simply vanished, and I opposed the tax increase. Source: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, by Newt Gingrich, p. 29-30 Jul 2, 1998

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    God what slime. More tomorrow.

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    Karl Rove – Cheney’s demon spawn on the darkside

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    This is an excerpt of an article written the day after the fall elections. This is klassic Karl krowing.

    http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/business_breaking/20101103_Rove_to_drillers__Expect_sensible_regulation.html

    Posted on Wed, Nov. 3, 2010

    Rove to drillers: ‘Expect sensible regulation’

    By Andrew Maykuth

    INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

    PITTSBURGH – Karl Rove, the Republican operative and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, today told an appreciative Marcellus Shale natural gas conference that the sweeping Republican victory on Tuesday would put an end to most of the industry’s legislative threats.

    Rove said a new Republican House of Representatives supportive of the energy industry “sure as heck” would not pass climate-change legislation that the outgoing Democratic Congress had been unable to pass.

    “Climate is gone,” said Rove, the keynote speaker on the opening day of a two-day shale-gas conference sponsored by Hart Energy Publishing L.L.P. And Rove told the trade show, “I don’t think you need to worry” the new Congress will consider proposed legislation to put the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing under federal rather than state regulation. The procedure, known as “fracking,” is responsible for the dramatic growth of shale-gas drilling in formations such as Pennsylvania’s vast Marcellus Shale.

    “I think we’re back to a period of sensible regulation,” said Rove, a commentator on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal.

    While Rove spoke, several hundred colorfully dressed anti-drilling activists protested outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, but their drum beats could not be heard inside the conference as about 2,000 people dined on steak and potatoes, followed by Rove’s analysis of Tuesday’s election.

    dot dot dot says he

    This  man (Obama) can not try to pass a major piece of legislation without demonizing some group of people and making them a target,” said Rove, citing Obama’s targeting of the health insurance industry, Wall Street bankers and energy companies to advance his agenda.

    more dots

    Rove lavished praise on the gas-drillers, who he said were bringing prosperity to parts of Pennsylvania.

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    For more Republican juvenile giggles and fart jokes please see the entire article because in a very short speech he manages to offend almost everyone. More tomorrow.

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    Michelle Malkin(tent) And Energy Policy – Green means you’re a thief

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    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/michelle-malkin-dems-lame-duck-land-grab-wont-pass-without-fight#ixzz1BgnnDjMF

    Michelle Malkin: Dems’ lame-duck land grab won’t pass without a fight

    By: Michelle Malkin 12/15/10 8:05 PM
    Examiner Columnist
    Environmentalistshate sprawl — except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill. In a last-ditch lame duck push, eco-lobbyists have been furiously pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pass a monstrous 327-page omnibus government lands bill crammed with more than 120 separate measures to lock up vast swaths of wilderness areas.Despite the time crunch, Senate Democrats in search of 60 votes are working behind the scenes to buy off green Republicans. House Democrats would then need a two-thirds majority to fast-track the bill to the White House before the GOP takes over on Jan. 5.

    Yes, the hurdles are high. But with Reid and company now vowing to work straight through Christmas into the new year (when politicians know Americans are preoccupied with the holidays), anything is possible. The Constitution is no obstacle to these power grabbers. Neither is a ticking clock.

    The Democrats’ brazen serial abuse of the lame-duck session is as damning as the green job-killing agenda enshrined in the overstuffed public lands package.

    Earlier this month, Reid assigned worker bees on three Senate committees — Energy and Natural Resources, Commerce, and Environment and Public Works — to draw up their public lands wish list. All behind closed doors, of course.

    House Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., rightly dubbed it a “Frankenstein omnibus of bills” and pointed out that the legislation “includes dozens of bills that have never passed a single committee, either chamber of Congress, or even been the subject of a hearing.”

    The sweeping bill bundles up scores of controversial proposals, including:

    — A stalled land transfer and gravel mining ban in Reid’s home state of Nevada.

    — The designation of the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness in Oregon as a federally protected wilderness where logging and road development would be prohibited.

    — Multiple watershed and scenic river designations that limit economic activity and threaten private property rights.

    — The creation of massive new national monument boundaries and wilderness areas along the southern border opposed by ranchers, farmers, local officials and citizens.

    One New Mexico activist, Marita Noon, said the federal plans to usurp nearly a half-million acres in her state would result in an “illegal immigrant superhighway” off-limits to border security enforcement. Security analyst Dana Joel Gattuso pointed to a recent General Accounting Office report on how environmental permitting rules and land-use regulations have hampered policing efforts at all but three stations along the border

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    I actually left out the energy part. It is near the bottom. If you can bear the the Washington Toiletpaper for even a moment, go see. More next week.

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    Morris and Gann On Energy Policy – Obama bad McCain good

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    What a difference the evaporation of 5 $$$ gasoline and 2 years makes. Obama is President and one of the greenest Presidents we have ever had. McCain is not. Gasoline, though rising, is at 3.25 $$$ a gallon. Electric cars have just rolled out of two car companies, one of which Obama saved through a bailout. The electrics are popular and have waiting lists. The new normal for cars is 40 miles to the gallon. Of course I have the advantage of hindsight but I was pointing out that Obama had the superior energy policy back then so I can crow alittle.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/mccain_scores_with_offshore_dr.html

    June 19, 2008

    McCain Scores With Offshore Drilling Proposal

    By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

    John McCain has drawn first blood in the political debate following Barack Obama’s victory in the primaries. His call yesterday for offshore oil drilling — and Bush’s decision to press the issue in Congress – puts the Democrats in the position of advocating the wear-your-sweater policies that made Jimmy Carter unpopular.

    With gas prices nearing $5, all of the previous shibboleths need to be discarded. Where once voters in swing states like Florida opposed offshore drilling, the high gas prices are prompting them to reconsider. McCain’s argument that even hurricane Katrina did not cause any oil spills from the offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico certainly will go far to allay the fears of the average voter.

    For decades, Americans have dragged their feet when it comes to switching their cars, leaving their SUVs at home, and backing alternative energy development and new oil drilling. But the recent shock of a massive surge in oil and gasoline prices has awakened the nation from its complaisance. The soaring prices are the equivalent of Pearl Harbor in jolting us out of our trance when it comes to energy.

    Suddenly, everything is on the table. Offshore drilling, Alaska drilling, nuclear power, wind, solar, flex-fuel cars, plug-in cars are all increasingly attractive options and John McCain seems alive to the need to go there while Obama is strangely passive. During the Democratic primary, he opposed a gas tax holiday and continues to be against offshore and Alaska drilling and squishy on nuclear power. That leaves turning down your thermostat and walking to work as the Democratic policies.

    McCain has also been ratcheting up his attacks on oil speculators. With the total value of trades in oil futures soaring from $13 billion in 2003 to $260 billion today, it is increasingly clear that it is not the supply and demand for oil which is, alone, driving up the price, but it is the supply and demand for oil futures which is stoking the upward movement.

    The Saudis have made a fatal mistake in not forcing down the price of oil. We could have gone for decades as their hostage, letting their control over our oil supplies choke us while enriching them. But they got greedy and let the price skyrocket.

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    Just so we are clear here, the Greedy Saudi’s had nothing to do with the gasoline prices, speculators and greedy refinery owners did. But then they are these guys friends so they couldn’t possibly see that. More tomorrow.

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    Michael Barone And Energy Policy – We are addicted to coal so get over it

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    Apparently Mike Barone believes the tautology that we use a lot of coal now, so we always will. He believes that politicians are gutless when it comes to environmental damage. We shall see.

    http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/barone/2009/03/25/obama-cap-and-trade-will-meet-coal-fired-energy-political-opposition

    Michael Barone

    Obama Cap-and-Trade Will Meet Coal-Fired Energy Political Opposition

    By Michael Barone

    Posted: March 25, 2009

    By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

    Bill Galston at the New Republic‘s blog provides some clear thinking on the prospects for the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade legislation. His conclusion: ain’t gonna happen. Galston notes that national polls show that on the question of balancing economic against environmental considerations, voters have switched and are now more concerned about the economy—as in holding down utility costs—and less concerned about the environment.

    And, as Galston points out, a cap-and-trade system would substantially increase the price of electricity produced by coal. Nationally, we get 49 percent of our energy by coal (these are 2006 figures, from the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States), but reliance on coal varies widely by state. The following table may help you to understand the political implications. It shows the percentage of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average and the number of Democratic senators and representatives from each of those states.

    % of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average senators representatives
    Alabama 55 0 2
    Colorado 71 2 5
    Delaware 69 2 0
    Georgia 63 0 6
    Indiana 95 1 5
    Iowa 76 1 3
    Kansas 73 0 1
    Kentucky 92 0 2
    Maryland 60 2 7
    Michigan 60 2 8
    Minnesota 62 1 5
    Missouri 84 1 4
    Montana 60 2 0
    Nebraska 65 1 0
    New Mexico 80 2 3
    North Carolina 60 1 8
    North Dakota 93 2 1
    Ohio 86 1 10
    Oklahoma 50 0 1
    Pennsylvania 56 1 12
    Tennessee 65 0 5
    Utah 89 0 1
    West Virginia 97 2 2
    Wisconsin 65 2 5
    Wyoming 94 0 0
    TOTAL 26 96

    Do the math. That leaves only 32 Democratic senators from less-than-average coal-reliant states and only 157 Democratic House members from less-than-average coal-reliant states. Now I’m not saying that every member from such states will vote against cap-and-trade, but I think an awful lot would. And I don’t think many Republicans are going to vote for cap-and-trade. In his press conference last night, Barack Obama seemed to accept the Senate Budget Committee’s Democrats’ decision to jettison the money for cap-and-trade and expressed a wistful hope that something might be done later. But even in better economic times, the numbers tend to work against any such proposal.

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    More tomorrow.

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    Walter Williams And Energy Policy – Just putting their words up so you can see what we are up against

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    I should say first that I detest this man and the “university” that he claims to teach at if he is still there. George Mason University is just a front group for corporate and christian evil. The real malfeasance is that they dress it up as “higher education” and “graduate learning programs”.

    This is a rich black man who drives a $70,000 car and shills for oil, gas and coal.

    Oh, and I have been neglecting to mention where I get my list of the 30 top conservative columnists from:

    http://rightwingnews.com/2009/09/the-30-best-conservative-columnists-for-2009-version-3-0/?p=1207?comments=show

    Here is Walter in all his ignorance the day before Christmas.
    Walter E. Williams

    Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil. The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming.” U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was “criminally irresponsible” to ignore the urgency of global warming. U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland on May 10, 2007 declared the climate debate “over” and added “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the U.N.’s scientific “consensus.” In July 23, 2007, CNN’s Miles O’Brien said, “The scientific debate is over.” Earlier he said that scientific skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.”

    The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. Recently, more and more scientists are summoning up the courage to speak out and present evidence against the global warming rope-a-dope. Atmospheric scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”

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    More tomorrow.

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    While We Are In The Midst Of A Meditation On Conservative Talking Heads

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    The Illinois Statehouse is in full swing. So I am going to take a break here and post this relatively import piece of information. PLEASE call your representatives.

    https://www.ilenviro.org/news/

    Taylorville and Leucadia Proposals Heard by the Illinois Senate
    January 5, 2011

    Tonight, two energy bills were voted on in the Illinois Senate.  There are no additional bills related to the environment expected to be heard this week.  Each of these bills previously passed the Illinois House.

    Taylorville Energy Center (SB2485)

    Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center (SB2485) has so far failed to pass the Senate following the Senate’s adjournment tonight.  Outgoing State Senator Deanna Demuzio presented the bill to the Senate.  Several senators expressed concerns about the increased rates to businesses.  Senator Kirk Dillard explained his concerns, “When you do the mathematical analysis of this project, it doesn’t make sense.”  He also expressed concern over what he called the “legal pledge that binds the state of Illinois to Tenaska for three decades” contained within the bill.

    A few senators expressed concerns about the appearance of a subsidy to a particular business.  Senator Don Harmon expressed concerns over the way the bill “allocates the costs and risks over what is supposed to be a competitive market.”  Harmon, who stated that he would be voting for the bill, described it as a “prudent experiment on how to deal with coal in an environmentally responsible way.”  Many speaking for the bill referred to the facility as a very clean way to process coal.

    When the question was called, the vote was 25 voting NO, 29 voting YES and 3 voting PRESENT.  The bill’s sponsor, Senator Demuzio, postponed consideration of the bill, which means that the bill can be called for a vote again.  This bill failed in the House at first, but the same mechanism was used to call the vote for a question again, when it passed.  The Illinois Sierra Club and several business groups opposed this legislation.

    Leucadia Energy Facility

    The Leucadia Energy Facility (SB3388) passed the Senate tonight and will move to the Governor’s desk for his signature.  Senator Trotter introduced the bill in the Senate.  Only one senator spoke about the bill in addition to the sponsor; Senator Risinger rose in support.  This bill passed the Senate with 36 voting YES, 13 voting NO, and 4 voting present.  View the votes here.

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    More tomorrow.

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    Thomas Sowell On Energy Policy – The conservative illiteracy continues

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    This  continues the meditation on conservative (read: right wing) public statements about Energy Policy.  According to Thomas Sowell global warming isn’t happening. For conservatives who don’t like facts they either make up their own or claim others are making them up.

    http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell022808.php3

    Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2008 / 22 Adar I 5768

    Cold Water on ‘Global Warming’

    By Thomas Sowell

    http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

    It has almost become something of a joke when some “global warming” conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.


    But stampedes and hysteria are no joke — and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming “crisis.”


    They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all “scientists” and then claim that “all” the experts agree on a global warming crisis.


    Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.


    A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.


    Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?


    A new and very different conference on global warming will be held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, on March 2nd to March 4th — weather permitting.


    It is called an “International Conference on Climate Change.” Its subtitle is “Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?” Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions.


    They come from universities in England, Hungary, and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include among other dignitaries the president of the Czech Republic.


    There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants.


    The theme of the conference is that “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.”

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    More tomorrow.

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