(B) Energy and Environmental Policy

By Kimberly Strassel – We still don’t know the extent to which human activity plays a role in warming, given natural variability, data limitations, uncertain models and fluctuations in solar activity. Models predicting what is to come remain all over the map. U.S. historical data doesn’t support claims of increased frequency or intensity of extreme weather. Climate change is likely to have little effect on economic growth. U.S. climate policies, even drastic ones, will have negligible effect on global temperatures. Read More

By Tunku Varadarajan , Nathan Myhrvold – …“There are activists who oppose funding or experiments. There’s no evidence I can see that many of the people involved in the climate debate want a solution.”…Geoengineering would appear to be the application of science par excellence. …“Opponents worry that once you have geoengineering, people won’t make sacrifices to cut emissions. They want a sword of Damocles hanging over humanity as a means to force us to follow their ideology.”…. In climate change, he says, this moralistic attitude takes the following form: “I don’t like aspects of our society, I don’t like technology, I don’t like capitalism, and this is nature’s retribution. And so we have to change the way we live.” Such beliefs “have become a very powerful disincentive, particularly for academic researchers.” …He calls it “insane” not to fund such research … Read More