Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman looks over the EPA’s recent decision to deny a mining permit in Logan County, West Virginia that would have created 250 jobs. William believes the EPA has overestimated the proposed mine’s environmental effects. Jobs, he contends, are being treated as less important than bugs. The decision has also set up a heated political conflict between West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
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Posted in CEI Podcast, The New Religion
Tagged logan county, mining, West Virginia, William Yeatman, wv
CEI Research Associate Brian McGraw talks about the federal government’s multi-billion dollar subsidies for ethanol, which is now dismissed even by environmental groups as an inferior alternative to gasoline. He also explains what lies in ethanol’s near future. Brian was also recently interviewed on RTV’s Thom Hartmann Show, which you can watch here.
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Posted in CEI Podcast, The New Religion
Tagged brian mcgraw, ethanol subsidies, thom hartmann
CEI’s Senior Fellow in Environmental Policy Ben Lieberman explains how new energy regulations affect every room in your house, from the basement to the bathroom to the kitchen and beyond.
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Posted in CEI Podcast, regulation, The New Religion
Tagged ben lieberman, cei, cei podcast, energy efficency, regulation, saving energy, tradeoffs
The goal of the 10:10 Project is to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent per year. Sony, which supported the 10:10 Project until a promotional video featuring exploding global warming skeptics offended a lot of people, has its own project called the “Road to Zero.”
While they mean well, supporters of the two initiatives seem to have forgotten Zeno’s paradox. Suppose that people are particularly zealous about their carbon-cutting and cut 50 percent per year, not 10 percent. Not only does that make the math easier, it biases the numbers against the argument I’m making.
Their emissions would go from 1 to 1/2 to 1/4 to 1/18 to 1/16, and so on. Emissions move asymptotically towards zero, which is a fancy way of saying they never actually get there.
As with most campaigns of this sort, 10:10 and Road to Zero may succeed in making people feel good about themselves. And there is some value in that. But the schemes, especially taken together, are too clever by half. Or, more likely, the opposite.
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Posted in The New Religion
Tagged 10:10 project, climate change, exploding skeptics, global warming, road to zero, sony, zeno, zeno's paradox
This video seems to be saying, “Do what we tell you or we’ll blow you up.” Surprisingly, people aren’t taking very kindly to it.
Posted in The New Religion
The EPA recommends setting your water heater to no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. But OSHA recommends setting it to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Why the difference?
“If you turn your water heater down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit; you will cut your water-heating costs by 6-10 percent,” says EPA. Doing so also uses less energy.
But 120 degrees is not hot enough to kill the Legionella pneumophila bacteria. Legionnaire’s disease causes both flu-like and pneumonia-like symptoms. The disease is most often caught by inhaling the spiral-shaped bacteria via water mist, such as in the shower or near a lake or stream. That’s why OSHA recommends setting your water heater hot enough to kill the bacterium – 140 degrees.
Legionnaire’s disease got its name when the Pennsylvania American Legion celebrated America’s 1976 bicentennial at a hotel with contaminated water. More than 200 people were treated for pneumonia. 34 died. The newly discovered Legionella pneumophila bacteria turned out to be the cause. That and other bacteria are why OSHA recommends 140 degrees.
EPA and OSHA are free to publish all the recommendations they want. But hopefully they won’t impose one standard or other on the entire country. One is expensive; the other would kill people.
Fortunately, you are still free to set your water heater how you choose. If you place a high value on saving money and energy, and you have your health, 120 degrees is the way to go. But if you are elderly or infirm, or you have children in your household, 140 degrees is probably better for you. When it comes to your water heater, you know best. Hopefully OSHA and EPA will continue to recognize that.
(via Sam Kazman)
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Posted in Regulation of the Day, The New Religion
Tagged american legion, bicentennial, energy, epa, Legionella pneumophila, legionnaire's disease, OSHA, regulation, Regulation of the Day, water heaters
CEI Senior Fellow Greg Conko, author of The Frankenfood Myth, talks about the promise and imagined peril of genetically modified salmon. The controversial creature reaches normal size twice as fast as unmodified salmon.
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Posted in CEI Podcast, Everybody Panic, The New Religion
Tagged cei, frankenfish, frankenfood, genetic engineering, genetically modified salmon, gm, gm animals, gm food, gm salmon, Greg Conko, salmon
Japan’s Environment Ministry is encouraging its citizens to go to bed an hour earlier at night, and get up an hour earlier in the morning.
There is much wisdom in the old “early to bed, early to rise” adage. But that’s not what the Environment Ministry has in mind. They see going to bed early as a way to fight global warming.
By saving an hour’s worth of lighting and other electricity use every day, the Morning Challenge campaign says the average household can emit 85 fewer kilograms of carbon per year. Staying up late ensures mankind’s doom.
It is astounding that the Japanese regulators think that your bedtime is government business. Then again, this is the same country that has a legally allowable maximum waistline.
“Plastics are the future,” a pushy relative told a young Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Was he giving career advice — or a warning? After all, some environmental activists think that plastics are responsible for diseases ranging from attention deficit disorder to cancer.
The specific culprit of mankind’s impending doom is Bisphenol A. Called BPA for short, it is a chemical added to plastics to make them harder. BPA is a very common chemical. It’s in everything from laptop computers to CDs to pens.
Activists say that BPA “disrupts hormones and alters genes, programming a fetus or child for breast or prostate cancer, premature female puberty, attention deficit disorders and other reproductive or neurological disorders.”
They are calling for bans and other regulations to limit peoples’ BPA exposure.
Scary stuff. But there is a problem with this bed-wetting level of hysteria; there hasn’t exactly been a rash of death and disease attributable to BPA. In fact, breast cancer rates have actually been declining by 2 percent per year since 1999. The FDA notes that “current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk.”
Still, people do scare easily. The very word “chemical” sends chills down the spines of otherwise rational people. Activists can take advantage of these hot buttons to draw attention to their issues and increase their budgets. Scaring people is good for business.
There are ways to fight back. One is by reading my CEI colleague Angela Logomasini’s excellent work debunking the BPA scare. Another is to join a new Facebook group called “Hands Off My Plastic Stuff!!”
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Posted in Regulation of the Day, The New Religion
Tagged angela logomasini, bisphenol a, bpa, breast cancer, chemical, chemicals, dustin hoffman, plastic, the graduate
If the embedded video isn’t working, click here to watch.
CEI colleague Marlo Lewis is a fine guitarist. He performs regularly in a folk trio. He also recently adapted an old Paul Simon song and redid the lyrics to be about global warming. The result is CEI’s first music video. Since I have a lot of recording experience from when I was younger, I was tasked with recording and mixing the music. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon at work, and it turned out very well.
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Posted in The New Religion
Tagged climate change, global warming, paul simon
Inertia Wins! 