Although little corporate money goes to skeptics (especially as compared to the corporate money that goes to alarmists), the green-run Checks and Balances Projects apparently aims to resurrect that myth with two goals in mind: (1) continue to intimidate corporations from funding skeptics and (2) intimidate the media from running skeptic commentary. The Checks and Balances Project is ironically named since the Constitution’s system of checks-and-balances is the system the Founding Fathers devised to limit the growth of government. The Checks and Balances Project, in contrast, intends to silence skeptics so that government power can expand through climate-energy policy. [Checks and Balances Project]
Boxer to Create Congressional Climate Caucus
So reports E&E Daily. It will no doubt be as successful as the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill of the 111th Congress.
IBD: Public Must Face True Cost Of Unreliable Renewables
“California’s Public Utilities Commission estimated in 2009 that the 33% RPS rule (finally adopted in 2011) would require an investment of about $115 billion, or some $3,000 for every Californian.” [Investor’s Business Daily]
Medical Journal Article Calls EPA Human Experiments Illegal and Unethical
TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 11, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — According to an article in the winter 2012 issue of the Journal of American Physicians
and Surgeons, research sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violates “every law, regulation, and standard developed since World War II for the protection of human subjects.” Continue reading Medical Journal Article Calls EPA Human Experiments Illegal and Unethical
Forbes: America's 20 Dirtiest Cities
Fresno may be the “dirtiest” (a relative term), but show us a human casualty. [Forbes]
Spike in air pollution linked to drilling
“In the Colorado mountains, a spike in air pollution has been linked to a boom in oil and gas drilling. A thousand miles away on the plains of north Texas, there’s a drilling boom, too, but some air pollution levels have declined. Opponents of drilling point to Colorado and say it’s dangerous. Companies point to Texas and say drilling is safe.” [AP]
Study: Gays made via epigenetics, not genetics
“Epigenetics – how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches, called epi-marks – appears to be a critical and overlooked factor contributing to the long-standing puzzle of why homosexuality occurs.” [EurekAlert]
99.9% renewable by 2030?
What happens when energy modelers drop acid. [ScienceDirect]
Feulner: No time to get LOST
“President Reagan was right to reject LOST 30 years ago. The U.S. Senate should do the same thing today.” [Washington Times]
GE CEO: Chinese communism 'works'
Apparently still longing for cap-and-trade, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt tells Charlie Rose, “… The one thing that actually works, state run communism a bit -– may not be your cup of tea, but their government works.” [Weekly Standard]
Magic Food: Caffeinated coffee may reduce the risk of oral cancers
“A new American Cancer Society study finds a strong inverse association between caffeinated coffee intake and oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality. The authors say people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day were at about half the risk of death of these often fatal cancers compared to those who only occasionally or who never drank coffee.” [EurekAlert]
Conservatives can be persuaded to care more about the environment, study finds
“New research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that [skeptic] viewpoints can be changed after all, when the messages about the need to be better stewards of the land are couched in terms of fending off threats to the “purity” and “sanctity” of Earth and our bodies.’ [UC Berkeley] Someone has apparently taken Dr. Strangelove‘s Col. Jack Ripper a little too seriously…