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NOTES
- See EIA, “How Dependent Are We on Foreign Oil?,” Energy in
Brief, http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm.
- The year 2007 is the most recent one for which final data are available
from the Energy Information Administration. Preliminary data for 2008 indicate
that Mexico will likely be replaced by Saudi Arabia as our second-largest
petroleum supplier, while Mexico will likely rank third. See EIA, “Crude
Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries,”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html.
- See EIA, “Monthly Energy Review” (Table 3.3a, Petroleum Trade:
Overview), http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec3_7.pdf.
As defined by the EIA, the Persian Gulf includes Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. See EIA, “U.S. Imports
by Country of Origin,” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm.
- Similarly, many claim that the U.S. is too dependent on oil from the nations
of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel of major
oil suppliers. However, less than half (44.4 percent) of all U.S. imports
arrive from OPEC countries. See EIA, “Monthly Energy Review” (supra,
n. 3). Moreover, though they are often mistaken as the same group of countries,
OPEC and the Middle East are not the same group of countries, as OPEC includes
both Middle Eastern and non–Middle Eastern nations. In 2007, the U.S.
imported crude oil from the following OPEC nations: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador,
Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, and Venezuela. See EIA, “U.S. Imports by Country of Origin,”
supra, n. 3.
- See EIA, “How Dependent Are We on Foreign Oil?,” supra, n. 1.
- See EIA, “U.S. Net Imports by Country,” Energy in Brief,
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_neti_a_ep00_IMN_mbblpd_a.htm.
The EIA categorizes U.S. petroleum consumption as “products supplied.”
See EIA, “Monthly Energy Review,” `, n. 3.
- See EIA, “U.S. Imports by Country of Origin,” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm.
- OPEC accounted for 28.9 percent of U.S. petroleum consumption in 2007. See
EIA, “Monthly Energy Review,” supra, n. 3.
- See EIA, “Petroleum Products: Consumption,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/petroleumproductsconsumption.html.
According to the EIA, “Transportation use leads growth in liquid fuels
consumption. U.S. consumption of liquid fuels—including fuels from petroleum-based
sources and, increasingly, those derived from non-petroleum primary fuels
such as coal, biomass, and natural gas—totals 22.8 million barrels per
day in 2030 in the Annual Energy Outlook 2008. That is an increase
of 2.1 million barrels per day over the 2006 total.… All of the increase
is in the transportation sector, which accounts for 73 percent of total liquid
fuels consumption in 2030, up from 68 percent in 2006” (ibid.). The EIA
defines the transportation sector as follows: “An energy-consuming sector
that consists of all vehicles whose primary purpose is transporting people
and/or goods from one physical location to another. Included are automobiles;
trucks; buses; motorcycles; trains, subways, and other rail vehicles; aircraft;
and ships, barges, and other waterborne vehicles. Vehicles whose primary purpose
is not transportation (e.g., construction cranes and bulldozers, farming vehicles,
and warehouse tractors and forklifts) are classified in the sector of their
primary use.” See EIA, “Glossary,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/glossary/glossary_t.htm.
- See EIA, “Petroleum Products: Consumption,” supra, n. 9.
- The EIA defines the industrial sector as follows: “An energy-consuming
sector that consists of all facilities and equipment used for producing, processing,
or assembling goods. The industrial sector encompasses the following types
of activity: manufacturing (NAICS codes 31–33); agriculture, forestry,
fishing and hunting (NAICS code 11); mining, including oil and gas extraction
(NAICS code 21); and construction (NAICS code 23). Overall energy use in this
sector is largely for process heat and cooling and powering machinery, with
lesser amounts used for facility heating, air conditioning, and lighting.
Fossil fuels are also used as raw material inputs to manufactured products.
Note: This sector includes generators that produce electricity and/or useful
thermal output primarily to support the above-mentioned industrial activities.”
See EIA, “Glossary,” supra, n. 9.
- See EIA, “Petroleum Products: Consumption,” supra, n. 9.
- See EIA, “Energy Basics 101,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/energybasics101.html.
- OPEC supplied 53.7 percent. See EIA, “U.S. Imports by Country of Origin,”
supra, n. 3.
- See ibid.
- Uranium is the fuel most commonly used by nuclear power facilities. See
EIA, “Nuclear Fuel—Uranium,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/nuclear.html#Nuclear%20Fuel.
- See EIA, “Table 1. Total U.S. Proved Reserves of Crude Oil, Dry Natural
Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids, 1997–2007,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/data_publications/crude_oil_natural_gas_reserves/cr.html.
Proved reserves of 2007 were 345 million barrels (or 2 percent) more than
proved reserves of 2006. As defined by the EIA, proved reserves are “estimated
quantities that analysis of geologic and engineering data demonstrates with
reasonable certainty are recoverable under existing economic and operating
conditions” (EIA, “World Proved Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas,
Most Recent Estimates,” August 27, 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html).
- See EIA, “Table 1. Total U.S. Proved Reserves of Crude Oil, Dry Natural
Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids, 1997–2007,” supra, n. 18.
- The demonstrated reserve base is composed of coal resources that have been
identified to specified levels of accuracy and may support economic mining
under current technologies. See EIA, “Coal Reserves Current and Back
Issues,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/reserves/reserves.html.
- See ibid.
- The 2003 uranium-reserves assessment is the EIA’s most recent assessment.
See EIA, “U.S. Uranium Reserves Estimates,” June 2004, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/reserves/ures.html.
- See EIA, “U.S. Uranium Reserves by Forward-Cost,” June 2004, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/reserves/urescost.html:
“Uranium reserves that could be recovered as a by-product of phosphate
and copper mining are not included in these reserves. Reserves values in forward-cost
categories are cumulative; that is, the quantity at each level of forward
cost includes all reserves at the lower costs.”
- EIA, “Table A8. Electricity Supply, Disposition, Prices, and Emissions,”
Annual Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/appa.pdf#page=17.
- See EIA, “Figure ES 1. US Electric Power Industry Net Generation, 2007,”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/figes1.html.
- See EIA, “Petroleum Products: Consumption,” supra, n. 9.
- EIA, “How Much Renewable Energy Do We Use?,” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/renewable_energy.cfm.
- See EIA, “Figure ES 1. U.S. Electric Power Industry Net Generation,
2007,” supra, n. 25.
- See EIA, “Electric Power Annual 2003” (Figure ES 2), http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/electricity/034803.pdf.
- EIA, “Total Renewable Net Generation by Energy Source and State,”
May 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table6.html.
- EIA, “Table A8. Electricity Supply, Disposition, Prices, and Emissions,”
supra, n. 24.
- EIA, “Net Generation by Other Renewables: Total (All Sectors),”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.html.
- EIA, “Year-by-Year Reference Case Tables (2006–2030)” (Tables
8 and 16), http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/aeoref_tab.html.
- EIA, “Table A8. Electricity Supply, Disposition, Prices, and Emissions,”
supra, n. 24.
- EIA, “How Much Renewable Energy Do We Use?,” supra, n. 27. “However,
EIA projects renewable energy’s share of total worldwide electricity
generation will decrease slightly: from 18 percent of generation in 2005 to
15 percent in 2030. Although worldwide renewable energy is expected to increase,
it will be outpaced by growth in other electricity generation sources”
(EIA, International Energy Outlook 2008 [Tables H7 and H12], June 2008).
According to the EIA, “World electricity generation nearly doubles in
the IEO2008 reference case from 2005 to 2030. In 2030, generation in the non-OECD
countries is projected to exceed generation in the OECD countries by 46 percent.
Over the next 25 years, the world will become increasingly dependent on electricity
to meet its energy needs. Electricity is expected to remain the fastest-growing
form of end-use energy worldwide through 2030, as it has been over the past
several decades. Nearly one-half of the projected increase in energy consumption
worldwide from 2005 to 2030 is attributed to electricity generation in the
IEO2008 reference case. Since 1990, growth in net generation has outpaced
the growth in total energy consumption (2.9 percent per year and 1.9 percent
per year, respectively), and generation is expected to increase at an average
annual rate of 2.6 percent through 2030 as the growth in demand for electricity
continues to outpace growth in total energy use (Figure 52)” (EIA, International
Energy Outlook 2008 [Chapter 5—Electricity], June 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/electricity.html).
- See Gilbert E. Metcalf, “Taxing Energy in the United States: Which
Fuels Does the Tax Code Favor?,” Manhattan Institute, January 2009, http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/eper_04.htm.
- See EIA, “How Much Does the Federal Government Spend on Energy-Specific
Subsidies and Support?,” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/energy_subsidies.cfm.
Robert J. Michaels, professor of economics at California State University,
Fullerton, writes, “According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,
wind’s costs per kilowatt-hour hit bottom in 2002 and have since increased
by 60 percent. In 2004, the levelized cost of a coal-fired kilowatt hour was
3.53 cents, compared to 4.31 cents for nuclear, 5.47 for gas and 5.7 for wind.
According to a study by Gilbert Metcalf of Tufts University for the National
Bureau of Economic Research, removing subsidies to nuclear and wind power
takes the former to 5.94 cents and the latter to 6.64” (Robert J. Michaels,
“Hot Air and Wind,” National Review Online, December 20, 2007, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTlhN2I4ZDhmZTg2N2NmM2EzNmExYTEwNWRjNzU3Mzk).
- Hybrid cars are powered by electricity and either gasoline or diesel. Alternative-fuel
vehicles include electric cars and cars that can run on natural gas or an
E85 blend (85 percent ethanol / 15 percent gasoline). Hybrids are not considered
AFVs, according to the Department of Energy. See EIA, “Table V1. Estimated
Number of Alternative Fueled Vehicles in Use in the United States, by Fuel
Type, 2003–2006,” May 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/atftables/afvtransfuel_II.html#inuse.
- EIA estimates the following number of AFVs in use in the U.S. from 2003
through 2006: 533,999 (2003); 565,492 (2004); 592,125 (2005); 634,562 (2006).
See EIA, “Table V1. Estimated Number of Alternative Fueled Vehicles in
Use in the United States, by Fuel Type, 2003–2006,” supra, n. 38.
“In 1997, some vehicle manufacturers began including E85-fueling capability
in certain model lines of vehicles. For 2006, the EIA estimates that the number
of E-85 vehicles that are capable of operating on E85, gasoline, or both,
is about 6 million. Many of these alternative-fueled vehicles (AFVs) are sold
and used as traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. In this table, AFVs in
use include only those E85 vehicles believed to be used as AFVs. These are
primarily fleet-operated vehicles” (ibid.).
- See Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “Table 1-11: Number of U.S.
Aircraft, Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Conveyances,” http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_11.html.
- See “J. D. Power Sees Three-Fold Growth for Hybrids by 2015,”
HybridCars.com, April 8, 2008, http://www.hybridcars.com/news/jd-power-forecasts-three-fold-growth-hybrids-and-diesels.html.
- John Voelcker, “How Green Is My Plug-In?,” IEEE Spectrum,
March 2009, http://spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/7928. “A non-profit organization,
IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement
of technology” (“About IEEE,” http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/home/index.html).
- Voelcker, “How Green Is My Plug-In?.”
- Ibid.
- James Kliesch and Therese Langer, “Plug-In Hybrids: An Environmental
and Economic Performance Outlook,” American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy, September 2006,
http://www.aceee.org/store/proddetail.cfm?CFID=1941952&CFTOKEN=35186425&ItemID=418&CategoryID=7.
- See “Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles,
Volume 1: Nationwide Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Electric Power Research
Institute and National Resource Defense Council, July 2007, http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/000000000001015325.pdf.
- The White House, “Energy and the Environment,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/energy_and_environment.
Specifically, the Obama administration’s New Energy for America plan
calls for renewable energy sources to generate 25 percent of the nation’s
electricity by 2025, an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050,
and 1 million plug-in hybrids on our roads by 2015.
- According to one projection, 100 megawatts of wind power supports 100–200
temporary construction jobs, yet just 6–10 permanent jobs. See Larry
Flowers, “Wind Energy Update,” National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
January 2009, http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/pdfs/wpa/wpa_update.pdf,
p. 24.
- According to Robert Michaels and Robert P. Murphy of the Institute for Energy
Research, “It is highly questionable whether a government campaign to
spur ‘green jobs’ would have net economic benefits. Indeed, the
distortionary impacts of government intrusion into energy markets could prematurely
force business to abandon current production technologies for more expensive
ones. Furthermore, there would likely be negative economic consequences from
forcing higher-cost alternative energy sources upon the economy. These factors
would likely increase consumer energy costs and the costs of a wide array
of energy-intensive goods, slow GDP growth and ironically may yield no net
job gains. More likely, they would result in net job losses” (Robert
Michaels and Robert P. Murphy, “Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction?,” Institute
for Energy Research, January 2009, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/green-jobs-fact-or-fiction).
“Even if the program creates jobs building bridges or windmills, it necessarily
prevents other jobs from being created,” writes John Stossel. “This
is because government spending merely diverts money from private projects
to government projects. Governments create no wealth. They only move it around
while taking a cut for their trouble. So any jobs created over here come at
the expense of jobs that would have been created over there” (John Stossel,
“The Fallacy of ‘Green Jobs,’ ” RealClearPolitics.com,
September 10, 2008,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/green_jobs.html).
Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum says that government plans to create jobs
simply amount to “wasteful spending that will divert resources from more
productive uses and ultimately result in lower employment than would otherwise
occur” (Jacob Sullum, “Obama’s Job Fetish,” Reason Online,
October 22, 2008, http://www.reason.com/news/show/129554.html).
- The Wall Street Journal reports that the federal stimulus bill “will
allow clean-energy companies to get federal support in the form of cash grants
from the Energy Department, rather than credits to be used against taxable
income. It also offers a wider range of tax credits for clean tech, especially
wind power” (“Clean Energy: Congress Comes through for Clean Tech;
Will Industry?,” Environmental Capital, Wall Street Journal, February
13, 2009, http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/02/13/clean-energy-congress-comes-through-for-clean-tech-will-industry).
- See “Summary: American Recovery and Reinvestment,” U.S. House
of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, February 13, 2009, http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary02-13-09.pdf.
- See “Fiscal Year 2009 Budget in Brief,” U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, http://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/FY09_budget_brief.pdf.
- Analyzing effective tax rates—which are used to calculate what energy-related
investments will return after taxes, taking into account subsidies for such
investments—Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf finds that solar energy and
wind energy are the most heavily subsidized energy technologies, with effective
subsidy rates of 245 and 164 percent, respectively. See Metcalf, “Taxing
Energy in the United States: Which Fuels Does the Tax Code Favor?.” According
to the EIA, in 2007, wind energy received $724 million in federal subsidies,
valued at $23.37 per megawatt hour (MWh) of wind-generated electricity, while
solar energy took in $174 million, at a subsidy-per-MWh value of $24.34. Coal
received a subsidy of 44 cents per MWh, natural gas and petroleum liquids
received 25 cents each, hydroelectric energy received 67 cents, and nuclear
power grabbed $1.59. See EIA, “How Much Does the Federal Government Spend
on Energy-Specific Subsidies and Support?,” supra, n. 37.
- The New York Times reports that ethanol plants “are shutting
down virtually every week.” According to the Times, “Bob Dinneen,
president of the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, estimated that
of the country’s 150 ethanol companies and 180 plants, 10 or more companies
have shut down 24 plants over the last three months. That has idled about
2 billion gallons out of 12.5 billion gallons of annual production capacity.
Mr. Dinneen estimated that a dozen more companies were in distress” (Clifford
Krauss, “Ethanol, Just Recently a Savior, Is Struggling,” New
York Times, February 11, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/business/12ethanol.html?_r=1&emc=eta1).
- “Creating millions of green-collar jobs, via legislative mandates and
taxpayer-funded subsidies, will require trillions of dollars (and vast mineral
resources) to dismantle an existing infrastructure that works—and replace
it with one that is mostly experimental. It will pink-slip tens of millions
of direct and indirect jobs that depend on abundant, reliable, affordable
energy from hydrocarbon and nuclear power” (Paul Driessen, “Green-Collar
Jobs—or Con Jobs?,” Science and Public Policy Institute Commentary
and Essay series, February 6, 2009,
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/green_collar_or_con_jobs.pdf).
“If you throw enough tax subsidies at something, you’re bound to
get some new jobs. But if the money for those subsidies comes from higher
energy taxes—and a cap and trade regime would amount to as much $1.2
trillion of new taxes—millions of jobs in carbon-using industry are also
going to be lost” (“The ‘Green Jobs’ Myth,” Wall
Street Journal Europe, December 9, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122886086448792609.html).
- One credit would represent the right to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide.
- See “A New Era of Responsibility,” White House Office of Management
and Budget, http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/26/fy10.budget.pdf,
p. 21.
- See Stephen Power, “Carbon Trading to Raise Consumer Energy Prices,”
Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123566843777484625.html?mod.
- Testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute commented on whether initiatives
to combat carbon emissions, such as cap-and-trade regimes, would create “green
jobs”: “The short answer, I would say, is that they might do so,
but only at the expense of other jobs that would otherwise have been produced
by the free market. Further, I’d suggest that the end result would be
significantly less jobs on net, less overall economic growth on net, and most
likely, the loss of existing capital as a by-product.… Because the market
is superior at efficiently identifying and providing what people want than
are planners, it is virtually certain that the lost jobs in any regulatory
scenario will outnumber the created jobs in a regulatory scenario” (testimony
of Kenneth P. Green, September 25, 2007, http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26871,filter.all/pub_detail.asp).
- “Oil & Gas Employment,” Independent Petroleum Association
of America, http://www.ipaa.org/reports/industrystats/usps/usps.asp?Table=Chart18.
- EIA, “Coal Mining Productivity by State and Mine Type” (Table
21), September 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table21.html.
- See EIA, “Figure ES 1. US Electric Power Industry Net Generation, 2007,”
supra, n. 25.
- Peter Huber and Mark Mills, The Bottomless Well (New York: Basic
Books, 2005), p. 112.
- Ibid., p. 123. Huber states: “Collectively, combustion engines burn
about 80% of all the thermal energy we use in the U.S. But the total amount
of fuel they burn has risen right alongside their efficiency.… The efficiency
of energy-consuming technologies always rises, with or without new laws from
Congress. Total consumption of primary fuels rises alongside. The historical
facts are beyond dispute: When jet turbines, steam power plants and car engines
were much less efficient than they are today, they consumed much less total
energy, too” (Peter Huber, “The Efficiency Paradox,” Forbes,
August 20, 2001, http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2001/0820/064.html).
- See EIA, “History of Energy in the United States: 1635–2000,”
Annual Energy Review 2007, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/total.html.
“The history of the twentieth century is one of gigantic increases in
efficiency—and even larger increases in consumption. The American economy
has experienced massive efficiency gains: for each unit of energy, we produce
more than twice as much GDP today than we did in 1950. Yet during that period
of time, our national total energy consumption has tripled. Paradoxically,
when it comes to energy, the more we save, the more we consume” (Max
Schulz, “Energy & the Environment: Myths & Facts,” Manhattan
Institute, April 2007, http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/Energy_and_Environment_Myths.pdf,
p. 9).
- See EIA, International Energy Outlook 2008, June 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/highlights.html.
The International Energy Agency says that world energy demand will increase
45 percent between now and 2030, an average annual increase of 1.6 percent.
See IEA, World Energy Outlook 2008, http://www.iea.org/weo/2008.asp.
- See EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2009: Early Release Overview, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html.
For perspective, the United States consumed less than 32 quads in 1949. See
EIA, “Primary Energy Consumption by Source, 1949–2007,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb0103.html.
- See Frank Clemente, “Energy Realities Facing the United States,”
http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/nrtf/clemente.pdf.
- The EIA defines the industrial sector as follows: “An energy-consuming
sector that consists of all facilities and equipment used for producing, processing,
or assembling goods. The industrial sector encompasses the following types
of activity: manufacturing (NAICS codes 31–33); agriculture, forestry,
fishing and hunting (NAICS code 11); mining, including oil and gas extraction
(NAICS code 21); and construction (NAICS code 23). Overall energy use in this
sector is largely for process heat and cooling and powering machinery, with
lesser amounts used for facility heating, air conditioning, and lighting.
Fossil fuels are also used as raw material inputs to manufactured products.
Note: This sector includes generators that produce electricity and/or useful
thermal output primarily to support the above-mentioned industrial activities.”
See EIA, “Glossary,” supra, n. 9.
- See EIA, “Glossary,” supra, n. 11. 9.
- The EIA defines the residential sector as follows: “An energy-consuming
sector that consists of living quarters for private households. Common uses
of energy associated with this sector include space heating, water heating,
air conditioning, lighting, refrigeration, cooking, and running a variety
of other appliances. The residential sector excludes institutional living
quarters. Note: Various EIA programs differ in sectoral coverage.” See
EIA, “Glossary,” supra, n. 9.
- The EIA defines the transportation sector as follows: “An energy-consuming
sector that consists of all vehicles whose primary purpose is transporting
people and/or goods from one physical location to another. Included are automobiles;
trucks; buses; motorcycles; trains, subways, and other rail vehicles; aircraft;
and ships, barges, and other waterborne vehicles. Vehicles whose primary purpose
is not transportation (e.g., construction cranes and bulldozers, farming vehicles,
and warehouse tractors and forklifts) are classified in the sector of their
primary use.” See EIA, “Glossary,” supra, n. 9.
- See EIA, “Energy Consumption by Sector,” Annual Energy Review
2007, http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/pdf/pages/sec2.pdf.
- “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2007 Facts and Figures,”
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste, November
2008, http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw07-rpt.pdf,
p. 14. According to Clemson University professor Daniel K. Benjamin, in the
mid-1990s, nationwide landfill capacity stood at about fourteen years and
rose to more than eighteen years by 2001. See Daniel K. Benjamin, “Eight
Great Myths of Recycling,” Property and Environment Research Center,
PERC Policy Series no. PS-28 (September 2003), http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps28.pdf.
Professor Benjamin, who says that the United States has more landfill capacity
than ever before, contends that the total space required to contain all of
the country’s garbage for the next hundred years is just ten square miles.
See James Thayer, “Recycle This!,” The Weekly Standard, January
26, 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/603wxcce.asp?pg=2.
Professor Benjamin writes, “Various authors have calculated just how
much space it would take to accommodate America’s garbage. The answer
is: not much. If we permitted the rubbish to reach the height it did at New
York’s Fresh Kills site (255 feet), a landfill that would hold all of
America’s garbage for the next century would be only about 10 miles on
a side.… To be more colorful, Ted Turner’s Flying D ranch outside
Bozeman, Montana, could handle all of America’s trash for the next century—with
50,000 acres left over for his bison” (Benjamin, “Eight Great Myths
of Recycling”).
In 1990, “A. Clark Wiseman of Gonzaga University pointed out that,
given projected waste increases, we would still be able to fit the next
1,000 years of trash in a single landfill 120 feet deep, with 44-mile sides.
Wiseman’s point is clear: land disposal needs are small compared to
the available land in the three million square miles of the contiguous United
States” (Angela Logomasini, “Solid and Hazardous Waste,”
Competitive Enterprise Institute, http://cei.org/pdf/2346.pdf,
p. 185, citing A. Clark Wiseman, U.S. Wastepaper Recycling Policies: Issues
and Effects [Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, August 1990], p.
2).
- This figure includes composted waste. “In 2007, Americans generated
about 254 million tons of trash and recycled and composted 85 million tons
of this material, equivalent to a 33.4 percent recycling rate” (“Municipal
Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts
and Figures for 2007,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw07-fs.pdf).
- Recycling is not always what is best for the environment, given the amount
of energy required during the recycling process. In fact, says Peter Huber,
“Recycling brings more pollution to the city to collect sorted trash,
pollutes more water to remove ink from newsprint.… Most of the time,
the best thing to do with our copious wastes is to bury them. With rare exceptions
recycling is the worst possible option” (Peter Huber, Hard Green: Saving
the Environment from the Environmentalists [New York: Basic Books, 1999],
pp. 33 and 114).
- “Landfills,” Environmental Literacy Council, http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/63.html.
- “National Report on Sustainable Forests—2010 (Draft),” United
States Department of Agriculture, December 8, 2008, http://www.fs.fed.us/research/sustain/2010SustainabilityReport/documents/draft2010sustainabilityreport.pdf.
- The Industrial Revolution brought about advances in agricultural production,
namely through the mechanization of farming and chemical advancements and
the displacement of wood by steel and other metals. As a result, farmers were
able to get greater crop yields from equal or less space. Fewer trees needed
to be cleared, and the deforestation that characterized preindustrial years
was halted during the twentieth century. Says Peter Huber, “For the first
time in history, a Western civilization has halted, and then reversed, the
decline of its woodlands” (Huber, Hard Green, p. 101).
- “National Report on Sustainable Forests—2010 (Draft),” supra,
n. 85. The same conclusion was reported in a 2002 report from the USDA’s
Forest Service, which “the total area of forest land has been fairly
stable for nearly 100 years” (W. Brad Smith et al., “Forest Resources
of the United States, 2002,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service,
http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_nc241.pdf,
p. 1). According to the 2002 report, U.S. forests covered 749 million acres.
- “Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005,” Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2006, ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/A0400E/A0400E00.pdf,
pp. 16 and 21. The Western Wood Products Association states: “U.S. lumber
demand is expected to finish 2008 at 40.9 billion board feet, the third consecutive
annual decline in demand and 36 percent below the 2005 peak. For 2009, lumber
demand is forecast to fall to 35 billion board feet, the lowest annual consumption
since 1982” (“Lumber Forecast Revised Downward Due to Weak Housing
Market, Economy,” Western Wood Products Association press release, January
6, 2009, http://www2.wwpa.org/ABOUTWWPA/Newsroom/tabid/817/Default.aspx).
- “Forest Resources of the United States, 2007” (WO-GTR-78), United
States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, 2008 (in draft), Table 3:
Forest area in the United States by region, subregion, and State, 2007, 1997,
1987, 1977, 1953, 1938, 1920, 1907, and 1630.
- “Understanding the Clean Air Act,” Environmental Protection Agency,
http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/peg/understand.html.
- A 2007 ruling by the United States Supreme Court (Massachusetts v. EPA)
opened the door for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions
of carbon dioxide. Though carbon dioxide traditionally has not been considered
a conventional pollutant harmful to human health, the Court, in a 5-4 decision,
found that the EPA has the authority, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate
carbon-dioxide emissions. Regardless of whether carbon emissions are ultimately
regulated by the EPA, pollution—in the traditional sense of the word—has
declined steadily in the U.S. for decades.
- “For example, sulfur dioxide, which results mainly from the burning
of coal and the smelting of some metals, is down 63 percent, while carbon
monoxide, the vast majority of which comes from automobiles, is down 74 percent.
At the same time, coal usage increased more than 60 percent and miles of driving
nearly doubled” (Joel Schwartz, “Blue Skies, High Anxiety,”
The American, May/June 2007, http://www.american.com/archive/2007/may-june-magazine-contents/blue-skies-high-anxiety).
According to Schwartz, “Virtually the entire nation now meets federal
standards for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and lead.
The country is also near full compliance for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s older standards for ozone (the “one-hour” standard)
and particulate matter (the “PM10” standard for airborne particulate
matter less than ten micrometers in diameter).”
- Ibid.
- James Taylor, “Easterbrook Rebuts New York Times on Bush Clean Air
Policy,” Environment & Climate News, July 2004, http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results.html?artId=15263.
Easterbrook notes that air pollution stands at half as much, per capita, as
in 1970, noting that “[p]articulate emissions have declined 14 percent
in the last decade. Acid rain emissions from power plants have fallen 41 percent
since 1980 and have fallen 9 percent since Bush’s election. Nitrogen
oxide emissions from power plants have declined 33 percent since 1990.”
- “National Air Quality Status and Trends through 2007” (Air Pollution),
Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/air/airtrends/2008/report/AirPollution.pdf.
See also “National Air Quality Status and Trends through 2007” (Six
Common Pollutants), Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/air/airtrends/2008/report/SixCommonPollutants.pdf.
- See Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While
People Feel Worse (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 42.
- Schwartz, “Blue Skies, High Anxiety”: “Pittsburgh reduced
particulate levels by more than 75 percent between the early 1900s and 1970.
Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York all have records going back to the 1930s
or 1940s showing large reductions in smoke levels.”
- In a similar survey conducted in 2006, almost 45 percent of respondents
were “not sure” how many people were killed as a result of the meltdown
at Three Mile Island. Roughly one in six respondents correctly identified
that the accident resulted in no fatalities. Nearly 12 percent thought that
more than one hundred people died, while almost 10 percent put the figure
at twenty-seven deaths. See Schulz, “Energy & the Environment.”
- “Backgrounder on Emergency Preparedness at Nuclear Power Plants,”
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/emerg-plan-prep-nuc-power-bg.html.
- Patrick Moore, “Going Nuclear: A Green Makes the Case,” April
16, 2006, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209_pf.html.
- “Nuclear Power and the Environment,” Environmental Protection
Agency, http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/nuclear.html#Environment.
- See EIA, “Frequently Asked Questions—Electricity,” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp.
- For more on the storage of used nuclear fuel, see “Fact Sheet on Storage
of Spent Nuclear Fuel,” United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/storage-spent-fuel-fs.html;
“Nuclear Waste Storage,” Nuclear Energy Institute, http://www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal;
“Radioactive Wastes: Myths and Realities,” World Nuclear Association,
June 2006, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf103.html;
and Bernard Cohen, “Examining Risks of Nuclear Waste Disposal,”
Marshall Institute, June 24, 2008, http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/590.pdf.
- William Tucker, “Going Nuclear: A Memo to John McCain,” National
Review Online, October 15, 2008, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDIwMjVjMTIyZTQ1NTJhNjM1YzFmZmFmNWVkNDA4ZjE.
- “Used nuclear fuel is stored at the nation’s nuclear power plants
in steel-lined, concrete vaults filled with water or in massive, airtight
steel or concrete-and-steel canisters” (“Storage of Used Nuclear
Fuel,” Nuclear Energy Institute,
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/storageofusednuclearfuel).
- “The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary
to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while the Administration
devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal” (“A New Era
of Responsibility,” White House Office of Management and Budget,
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/26/fy10.budget.pdf,
p. 65).
- See Anthony Andrews, “Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing: U.S. Policy Development,”
Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RS22542.pdf.
- Tucker, “Going Nuclear”: Ninety-five percent of a spent fuel
rod is U-238—the same natural uranium that comes out of the ground.
We could just put it back where it came from.… So why do we need Yucca
Mountain, a huge repository designed to ‘bury’ 77,000 tons of ‘nuclear
waste,’ when 95 percent of the material is non-fissioning natural uranium?...
Instead of treating it in an environmentally efficient way and recycling,
we ended up with huge, mixed-up gobs of material that we can’t think
of anything to do with except ‘throw it away.’ ”
- Moore, “Going Nuclear”: “Within 40 years, used fuel has less
than one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the
reactor.”
- See EIA, “Offshore—Petroleum and Natural Gas Production,”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/offshore.html.
According to the United States Minerals Management Service, the approximately
43 million leased acres of the Outer Continental Shelf account for about 15
percent of America’s domestic natural gas production and about 27 percent
of America’s domestic oil production. See “Offshore Energy &
Minerals Management (OEMM),” Minerals Management Service, http://www.mms.gov/offshore.
- See EIA, “Offshore Petroleum and Natural Gas,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/offshore.html#oilgas.
See also Minerals Management Service, “What About an Oil Spill?,”
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/egom/spill.html.
- “State jurisdiction is defined as follows: Texas and the Gulf coast
of Florida are extended 3 marine leagues (approximately 9 nautical miles)
seaward from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is
measured. Louisiana is extended 3 imperial nautical miles (imperial nautical
mile = 6080.2 feet) seaward of the baseline from which the breadth of the
territorial sea is measured. All other States’ seaward limits are extended
3 nautical miles (approximately 3.3 statute miles) seaward of the baseline
from which the breadth of the territorial seaward is measured” (Minerals
Management Service, “What Is the Outer Continental Shelf?,”
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whoismms/whatsocs.html).
- See “ ‘Snake Oil’: Debunking Three ‘Truths’ about
Offshore Drilling,” editorial, Washington Post, August 12, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102145.html.
For more on drilling safety, see Minerals Management Service, “Safety
and Oil Spill Research,” http://www.mms.gov/offshore/SafetyandOilSpillResearch.htm.
- The MMS is the United States Department of the Interior bureau that manages
the nation’s natural gas, oil and
- See Cheryl McMahon Anderson and Robert P. Labelle, “Update of Comparative
Occurrence Rates for Offshore Oil Spills,” U.S. Minerals Management Service,
Spill Science & Technology Bulletin 6, nos. 5–6 (2000): 303–21,
http://www.mms.gov/eppd/sciences/osmp/pdfs/AndersonAndLaBelle/AndersonAndLaBelle2000.pdf.
According to the authors: Overall OCS platform spill occurrence rates continued
to decline; OCS pipeline spill occurrence rates for spills greater than or
equal to 1,000 barrels remained essentially unchanged; OCS pipeline spill
occurrence rates for spills greater than or equal to 10,000 barrels decreased
significantly; and worldwide tanker spill rates, rates for tanker spills in
U.S. waters, and barge spills in U.S. waters decreased significantly.
Specifically, for the years 1964–99, the authors calculated the following
oil-spill rates: (1) 0.32 spills per billion barrels of oil handled for OCS
platform spills greater than or equal to 1,000 barrels; (2) 0.12 spills per
billion barrels of oil handled for OCS platform spills greater than or equal
to 10,000 barrels; and (3) 1.33 spills per billion barrels of oil handled
for OCS pipeline spills greater than or equal to 1,000 barrels. According
to the authors, eleven platform spills (crude oil, condensate, or diesel)
and sixteen pipeline spills (crude oil or condensate) greater than or equal
to 1,000 barrels occurred in the OCS between 1964 through 1999, while total
production was estimated to be 12 billion barrels of crude oil and condensate
during the same period. Worldwide, from 1974 through 1999, there were 278
crude-oil spills greater than or equal to1,000 barrels from self-propelled
crude-oil carriers, while an estimated 239.67 billion barrels of crude oil
moved worldwide during the same period. Forty-six crude-oil tanker spills
greater than or equal to 1,000 barrels occurred in U.S. coastal and offshore
waters (including U.S. territorial waters) from 1974 to 1999, while tankers
moved an estimated 44.5 billion barrels of oil in U.S. waters during the same
period.
- See “Oil in the Sea III: Inputs, Fates and Effects,” National
Academies’ National Research Council, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10388.
The report reveals that, of the 76 million gallons of oil that enter North
American ocean waters each year, 47 million gallons (or 62 percent) seep into
the waters naturally from the ocean floor. According to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration: “Apart from oil spills caused by human
actions, oil also is released into the environment from natural oil seeps
in the ocean bottom. One of the best-known areas where this happens is Coal
Oil Point along the California Coast near Santa Barbara. An estimated 2,000
to 3,000 gallons of crude oil are released naturally from the ocean bottom
every day just a few miles offshore from this beach.”
A study by the University of California Energy Institute reports that,
during the 1990s, “natural seeps annually emitted an estimated 600,000
tons of oil into the ocean, approximately half the annual total (1,300,000
tons) entering the ocean. By comparison, spills from marine vessels accounted
for 100,000 tons, terrestrial run-off 140,000 tons, and pipelines just 12,000
tons. In North America, seeps emit an estimate of 160,000 tons per year”
(Ira Leifer, Jim Boles, and Bruce Luyendyk, “Measurements of Oil and
Gas Emissions from a Marine Seep,” University of California Energy
Institute, January 2007, http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=ucei).
“Twice an Exxon Valdez spill worth of oil seeps into the Gulf of
Mexico every year, according to a new study.… But the oil isn’t
destroying habitats or wiping out ocean life. The ooze is a natural phenomena
that’s been going on for many thousands of years,” according to
Roger Mitchell, vice president of program development at the Earth Satellite
Corporation (EarthSat) in Rockville, Maryland. “The wildlife have adapted
and evolved and have no problem dealing with the oil” (Roger Mitchell,
“Tons of Oil Seeps into Gulf of Mexico Each Year,” Earth Observatory,
NASA, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=200001261633).
A joint NASA/Smithsonian study found the following amounts (in millions
of gallons) of oil enter the oceans, worldwide, each year: runoff from land
and municipal and industrial wastes: 363; routine maintenance: 137; hydrocarbons
from air pollution, chiefly from cars and industry: 92; natural ocean-floor
seepage: 62; major tanker accident/spills: 37; and offshore drilling: 15.
See http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html.
Referring to the joint study, the Wall Street Journal states: “A joint
study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades’
worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from
accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from
underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore
drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the
smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans. The vast majority of the
oil that finds its way into the sea comes from dry land, NASA found. Runoff
from cities, roads, industrial sites and garages deposits 363 million gallons
into the sea, making runoff by far the single largest source of oil pollution
in the oceans. ‘Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million
could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill,’ notes the Smithsonian
exhibit, ‘Ocean Planet.’ The second-largest source of ocean oil
pollution was routine ship maintenance, accountable for 137 million gallons
a year, NASA found—more than 2.5 times the amount that comes from tanker
spills and offshore drilling combined. But no one is proposing that we ban
cargo and cruise ships” (Andrew Cline, “Environmentalists Say
Yes to Offshore Drilling,” Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121581714417147413.html).
- See “Oil and Gas Seepage from Ocean Floor Reduced by Oil Production,”
University of California, Santa Barbara, press release, November 18, 1999,
http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=412.
For more information on California oil seeps, see “Stop Oil Seeps California,”
http://www.soscalifornia.com.
- Minerals Management Service, “Hurricane Katrina and Rita Research,”
http://www.mms.gov/tarprojectcategories/hurricaneKatrinaRita.htm.
- According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
the Earth’s surface temperature increased 0.6 degree Celsius during the
period 1860–2000. See “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis”
(WG1—Technical Summary, B.1 Observed Changes in Temperature), United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/082.htm#b1.
- See Francis W. Zwiers and Andrew J. Weaver, “Climate Change: The Causes
of 20th Century Warming,” Science, December 15, 2000, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/290/5499/2081.
More recently, satellite data reveal a pause and subsequent reversal in rising
temperatures. See Roy Spencer, “UAH Globally Averaged Satellite-Based
Temperature of the Lower Troposphere (January 1979—January 2009),”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures.
“All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s
GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year
[2007], global temperatures have dropped precipitously.… The total amount
of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C.… For all four sources, it’s
the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down”
(Michael Asher, “Temperature Monitors Report Wide-Scale Global Cooling,”
DailyTech, February 26, 2008, ttp://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm).
- See Spencer, “UAH Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of
the Lower Troposphere.” See also “Feb 2008—Jan 2009 Divisional
Ranks,” National Climatic Data Center/NESDIS/NOAA, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2009/jan/02_01_2009_DvTempRank_pg.gif.
- “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report” (Summary for Policymakers),
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf,
p. 2.
- “Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report,” United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/075.htm.
- “Is Recent Climate Change Unusual in a Geological Context?,” Australian
Greenhouse Office, Department of the Environment and Heritage, April 2005,
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/hottopics/pubs/topic5.pdf.
- See William J. Broad, “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype,”
New York Times, March 13, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html?_r=1&ref=science.
- See “Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis
Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global
Warming Fears,” Center for Global Food Issues (press release), September
12, 2007, http://www.cgfi.org/2007/09/12/challenge-to-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming-analysis-finds-hundreds-of-scientists-have-published-evidence-countering-man-made-global-warming-fears.
- See Craig Loehle, “A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based
on Non-Treering Proxies,” Energy & Environment 18, nos. 7–8
(November 2007): 1049–58, http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025.
On the other hand, the EPA cites a 2006 study by the National Research Council
finding that “temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations
were higher during the past 25 years than any period of comparable length
since A.D. 900. However, uncertainties associated with this statement increase
substantially backward in time” (“Past Climate Change,” U.S.
EPA, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc.html).
- See U.S. EPA, “Past Climate Change.”
- “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years,”
National Research Council, 2006, http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676.
- U.S. EPA, “Past Climate Change.” Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan
Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
writes that “the Earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing,”
adding that “we do not understand the natural internal variability of
climate change” (Richard Lindzen, “Don’t Believe the Hype,”
Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2006, http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597).
- Even the issue of how much the climate has changed is unsettled. Temperature
tracking is not done uniformly, temperature monitors can be influenced by
land-use changes and by their placement in urban “heat islands,”
and satellite data have only been around for three decades, providing just
a snapshot from a limited time frame. Ross R. McKitrick and Patrick J. Michaels
write that “nonclimatic factors, such as those related to land use change
and variations in data quality, likely add up to a net warming bias in climate
data, suggesting an overstatement of the rate of global warming over land”
(Ross R. McKitrick and Patrick J. Michaels, “Quantifying the Influence
of Anthropogenic Surface Processes and Inhomogeneities on Gridded Global Climate
Data,” Journal of Geophysical Research [2007], http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007JD008465.shtml).
For more on effects on temperature readings from urbanization and land-use
changes, see S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming:
Every 1,500 Years (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), pp.
142–45. “Satellite and weather balloon temperature records show
a very small warming trend during the past 27 and 50 years, respectively,
far lower than what the models predict. The satellite and weather balloon
data are real and are known to be accurate” (Singer and Avery, Unstoppable
Global Warming, p. 148).
- John Tierney, “Politics in the Guise of Pure Science,” New York
Times, February 23, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/science/24tier.html?_r=1&emc=eta1.
- “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report,” supra, n. 122. For a
critique of the IPCC’s forecasting methods, see “Climate Issues
& Questions,” 3rd ed., George C. Marshall Institute, http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/577.pdf.
- Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas. According to Greenpeace International,
methane is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas, in terms of its heat-trapping
potential, than carbon dioxide; nitrous oxide is 296 times more powerful;
hydrofluorocarbons are up to 20,000 times more powerful; perfluorocarbons
are 5,700 to 10,000 times more powerful; and sulfur hexafluoride is 23,900
times more powerful. See Greenpeace International, “Other Gases,”
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/science/other_gases.
- Though greenhouse gases are routinely viewed negatively, “If it were
not for naturally occurring greenhouse gases, the Earth would be too cold
to support life as we know it. Without the greenhouse effect, the average
temperature of the Earth would be about -2 degrees Fahrenheit rather than
the +57 degrees Fahrenheit we currently experience” (EIA, “What
Are Greenhouse Gases and How Much Are Emitted by the United States?,”
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/greenhouse_gas.cfm).
- See EIA, “Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy,” May 2008,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm.
- See “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report,” supra, n. 122.
- See Roy Spencer, “Global Warming: Natural or Man-Made?,” http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade.
- David J. C. MacKay, Sustainable Energy —Without the Hot Air
(Cambridge: UIT, 2008), http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html.
See also “Carbon Dioxide,” Atmosphere, Climate & Environment
Information Programme, http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/Teaching_Packs/Key_Stage_4/Climate_Change/02p.html.
- See Jeffrey Ball, “Green Goal of ‘Carbon Neutrality’ Hits
Limit,” Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123059880241541259-email.html.
- See Christopher Joyce, “Carbon Offsets: Government Warns of Fraud Risk,”
All Things Considered (National Public Radio), January 3, 2008, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17814838.
See also “Another Inconvenient Truth: Behind the Feel-Good Hype of Carbon
Offsets, Some of the Deals Don’t Deliver,” Business Week, March
26, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_13/b4027057.htm.
“According to the World Bank, global trades in this market in 2007 were
valued at more than $64 billion, more than doubling since 2006. Skip Willis,
president and CEO of Carbon Capital Management, a Toronto-based ‘carbon
monetization’ corporation, predicts that by the end of 2008 the global
carbon trading system will have topped $100 billion. ‘This is a market
that barely existed five years ago,’ Willis says” (Jennifer Barone,
“Carbon Trading: Environmental Godsend or Giant Shell Game?,” Discover
magazine, December 3, 2008, http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/03-big-business-of-carbon-trading).
- See Barone, “Carbon Trading.”
- “The Kyoto signatories agreed to exempt developing countries from pollution
limits. That has amounted to 139 nations” (Alan Zarembo, “Kyoto’s
Failures Haunt New U.N. talks,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2007,
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/03/science/sci-kyoto3).
- See Bjørn Lomborg, “Chill Out,” Washington Post, October
7, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100501676.html.
- See EIA, International Energy Outlook 2008 (Chapter 7—Energy-Related
Carbon Dioxide Emissions), June 2008, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/emissions.html.
According to the International Energy Agency, “Three-quarters of the
projected increase in energy-related CO2 emissions arises in China, India
and the Middle East, and 97% in non-OECD countries as a whole” (“World
Energy Outlook 2008 Fact Sheet: Global Energy Trends,” http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2008/fact_sheets_08.pdf).
- See EIA, “International Emissions Data: Energy-Related Carbon Emissions:
Total Emissions,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/environment.html.
- See Elisabeth Rosenthal, “China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide
Emitter,” New York Times, June 14, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/world/asia/14china.html.
- See supra, n. 145. In the Los Angeles Times, Alan Zarembo states that the
nine countries with the fastest-growing carbon-dioxide emissions are in the
developing world and that ten developing countries accounted for 75 percent
of the growth in worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2005.
“China’s emissions grew 138% over that period, catching up to U.S.
levels and setting a pace to double them in less than a decade” (Zarembo,
“Kyoto’s Failures Haunt New U.N. Talks”).
- “Australia is the latest place to question the idea that climate-change
legislation will be a free lunch, or nearly so. In a report commissioned by
the Australian parliament, independent consultants found that the government’s
optimistic cost estimates for climate-change legislation suffer from loads
of flaws, from the future cost of energy to the ease at which industries can
adapt to a low-carbon future. That means that the official line could be underestimating
the costs of curbing emissions and overstating its benefits … regardless
of what governments are saying, reducing economy-wide carbon emissions will
almost certainly not be quick, cheap, or easy. Which makes an honest tallying
of the costs and benefits all the more necessary to make climate policy work”
(Keith Johnson, “Green Dreams: Australia’s and California’s
Rosy Climate Visions Come Under Attack,” Environmental Capital [Wall
Street Journal], February 2, 2009, http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/02/02/green-dreams-australias-and-californias-rosy-climate-visions-come-under-attack).
- See Myth #3 for more on projected costs of the Lieberman-Warner bill.
- See “EPA Analysis of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008,”
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs,
March 14, 2008,
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/downloads/s2191_EPA_Analysis.pdf.
“United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has acknowledged that switching
to ‘clean’ energy sources will cost the global economy $15 trillion
to $20 trillion over the next two decades. Because there are so many uncertainties
and variables involved with any cap-and-trade scheme, cost analyses of Lieberman-Warner
show losses to the U.S. GDP of $1.7 trillion to $4.8 trillion over the next
20 years” (William F. Jasper, “Obama Cap-and-Trade Plan Uncaps Federal
Power,” The New American, December 9, 2008, http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/correction-please/583).
- See “United States Economic Impact from the Lieberman-Warner Proposed
Legislation to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” American Council for
Capital Formation / National Association of Manufacturers, March 2008, http://www.accf.org/media/dynamic/1/media_191.pdf.
- See “Jumpstarting the Economy and Investing for the Future,” Budget
of the United States Government (fiscal year 2010), http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/Jumpstarting_The_Economy.pdf.
- See “Ocean Energy,” United States Department of the Interior Minerals
Management Service, http://www.mms.gov/mmsKids/PDFs/OceanEnergyMMS.pdf.
See also Minerals Management Service, “What About an Oil Spill?,”
supra, n. 111.
- See “Jumpstarting the Economy and Investing for the Future,” supra,
n. 153.
- See http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8769/11-01-CO2Emissions.htm.
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