JunkScience.com

For insight into why greens oppose the cash-for-clunkers program — even though it would reduce tailpipe emissions — read this op-ed by Gwen Ottinger in today’s Washington Post.

Here’s an excerpt:

First, even when new cars and appliances are more efficient than the ones they replace, the act of replacing them entails environmental costs not accounted for in the stimulus programs. Building a new car, washing machine or refrigerator takes energy and resources: The manufacture of steel, aluminum and plastics are energy-intensive processes, and some of the materials used in durable goods, especially plastics, use non-renewable fossil fuels as feedstocks as well as energy sources. Disposing of old products, a step required by most incentive and rebate programs, also has environmental costs: It takes additional energy to shred and recycle metals; plastic components often cannot be recycled and end up as landfill cover; and the engine fluids, refrigerants and other chemicals essential to operating products end up as hazardous wastes.

Cash-for-clunkers, you see, just breeds new/more consumption — and consumption is evil.

Take home message: Stop consuming. Start Decomposing.

From the Oregonian:

Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint” on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit – have one less child.

And why should we have fewer children?

The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.

“In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime,” said Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics. “Those are important issues and it’s essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources.”

In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child – and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future – the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.

Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.

Moving past the junk science-fueled notion of the “carbon footprint” and the discredited population-growth and resource-scarcity fearmongering of the likes of Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich, Western birth rates are already falling precipitously — the U.S. replacement rate is barely at break-even. Having fewer children is tantamount to cultural suicide. Just who would we be saving the planet and its resources for?

Click here for the study.

Click here for study author Paul Murtaugh’s bio.

From Carbon Control News:

The natural gas pipeline industry [in the form of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA)] is drafting a legislative proposal for revising [Waxman-Markey] to … allow the industry to pass-along the cost of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to its customers without an explicit approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)…

While merchant power generators, utilities, and a number of other entities receive free allowances under the Waxman-Markey bill, pipeline companies do not. The INGAA spokespeson says the industry is not requesting free allowances, but instead is calling on Congress to allow the cost of purchasing allowances to be directly passed along to consumers, arguing that the allowance costs should be reflected in the delivered product.

“Unlike other industrial sources, we can’t simply raise our prices to reflect allowance” costs, the spokesperson says, noting that a pipeline company would need to go to FERC and formally request it, initiating a proceeding that can take a year or longer.

Instead, INGAA wants pipeline companies to be able to charge rates that “track” the fluctuating price of carbon allowances. Opening a new rate case would also “make the entire rate base subject to challenge and uncertainty,” something the companies want to avoid.

Here’s a novel thought: Why not oppose Waxman-Markey instead of trying to buff that legislative turd into a popsicle?

From Politico.com:

Three House Democratic leaders who were whipping members on the climate change bill gave tens of thousands in campaign cash to party moderates around the time of the 219-212 vote on June 26, according to Federal Election Commission records.

From the Sunday Times (Perth, Australia):

“While the fuel sources of renewable energy are inexpensive, the other costs associated with it are not, including the initial infrastructure cost, network costs, back-up generation and the like which are factors in the full cost of renewable energy,” Synergy head of corporate affairs Andrew Gasper said.

Will President Obama be the building inspector-in-chief?

The ‘Greatest Generation’ may have enough left for one more fight.

Baltimore Gas & Electric’s request for an expedited regulatory review of its smart meter installation program ran into the third rail of American politics last week — the AARP.

AARP Maryland filed a letter of opposition to the fast-track process asking for a full hearing, according to the Baltimore Sun (July 28).

The Sun reported:

“The problem is what’s not in the filing,” said AARP Maryland’s advocacy director, Hank Greenberg. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”

Only with an evidentiary hearing, with sworn witnesses and testimony by experts, would the public be “able to substantiate whether there are savings and whether some of the claims in the filing can be verified and backed up,” he said.

In its letter, AARP also raises concerns about a “time-of-use” pricing scheme also included in BGE’s filing. The utility proposed charging about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays from June through September and 10 cents for other times during that period.

Not only should AARP be concerned about smart meters — a.k.a., energy rationing via high prices — the seniors’ advocacy group ought to be concerned about the Waxman-Markey climate bill now being considered in the Senate.

While Waxman-Markey will raise energy prices for seniors (and everyone else), it won’t increase their fixed retirement incomes.