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Another thing I have found with the ongoing debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming climate change has been the constant claims by the warmist camp about "consensus" in regards to the findings by tens of thousands ten thousand a thousand 99% of climate scientists that It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans. This in itself is enough to discredit their 'proof', as science in no way, shape, or form is about consensus. It means they truly do not understand the scientific method or how proofs are made.

This is something the late author and physician Michael Crichton addressed during a guest lecture at Cal Tech back in 2003.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.

The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus: Period.

Crichton went on to list a number of major failures in regards to "consensus science", some of which caused the loss of many lives. Others destroyed careers, even though later it was discovered that those who went against the consensus were right and everyone else was wrong.

Albert Einstein had his own take on consensus, having once stated "It doesn't matter if ten thousand scientists agree with me. It only takes one to prove me wrong." One of the smartest men in the modern era understood the fallacy of consensus science.

And this is the weakness of the 'theory' of Anthropogenic Global Warming. At the moment it's all consensus and no hard proofs. People, many of them non-scientists, look at some of the presented data and see a correlation between global average temperatures and the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. They come to the conclusion that the increase in carbon dioxide is the cause of the temperature rise. They've fallen into the Correlation Trap. Unfortunately, so have some of the so-called climate scientists, like Al Gore.

As anyone who deals with data and statistics can tell you, correlation does not imply causality. This means just because two factors correlate to each other does not automatically mean that one caused the other. There may be other factors that affect both and cause the correlation but have not been discovered, or have been discounted through ignorance, bias, or conscious decision.

Another possibility the correlation may show but that the warmists have chosen to ignore: CO₂ concentrations have changed because of changing temperatures, something ice core samples from Antarctica have shown to be the case over the past 400,000 years, where CO₂ levels have lagged temperature changes, not led them. But why should they let that data change the narrative? After all the 'consensus' is that it's all our fault, meaning no further discussion is needed or wanted.

Yeah, that will work out well for all of us.

Not.

It seems I just can't get away from AGW this week.

As a follow on to my previous two posts is this piece about the reconstruction of global temperatures over the past 2,000 years. (Well, actually 1,995 years, but who's quibbling?)

This latest reconstruction used a host of proxies from all over the world, but excluded tree-ring proxies - something used by a number of climate researchers, including Mann - because of their unreliability.

...Loehle notes that many long-term reconstructions of climate are based on tree rings, but "There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not capture long-term climate changes (100+ years) because tree size, root/shoot ratio, genetic adaptation to climate, and forest density can all shift in response to prolonged climate changes, among other reasons." Furthermore, Loehle notes "Most seriously, typical reconstructions assume that tree ring width responds linearly to temperature, but trees can respond in an inverse parabolic manner to temperature, with ring width rising with temperature to some optimal level, and then decreasing with further temperature increases." Other problems include tree responses to precipitation changes, variations in atmospheric pollution levels, diseases, pest outbreaks, and the obvious problem of enrichment that comes along with ever higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Trees are not simple thermometers!

Instead, Loehle used such things as "borehole temperature measurements, pollen remains, Mg/Ca ratios, oxygen isotope data from deep cores or from stalagmites, diatoms deposited on lake bottoms, reconstructed sea surface temperatures, and so on." Loehle's reconstruction used everything except tree-ring data.

His results show both the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods as well as the Little Ice Age, which Mann's did not. Loehle's results also mirrored those of Svensmark, who used Carbon-14 data to determine solar activity over the past 1,000 years. Others have taken that even farther, going back almost 3,500 years. Loehle's global temperature chart mirrored that of the solar activity plotted by Svensmark and others, giving us further clues into another driving force behind climate change.

Could this be another bit of ammunition to use against the Global-Warming-Is-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans theory of climate change? Maybe.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

One of the most bothersome things I've noticed about those supporting AGW as fact is their constant citing of CO₂ data as the only thing we need to concentrate on. They seem to think that 'heat trapping' by atmospheric CO₂ is a linear relationship, meaning as the concentration of CO₂ increase, it's heat trapping increases likewise. But it doesn't. More than a few studies show that after it reaches a critical concentration, further increases have little effect on heat trapping. We're already past that point, meaning the CO₂ effects have reached saturation.

The AGW faithful also ignore such things as solar activity, claiming it's variations to be so small as to be meaningless. But they overlook or ignore other effects variations in solar activity can have that has nothing to do with its radiance. Certainly Svensmark's work implies they are discounting a very big factor that affects Earth's climate. (It certainly seems to affect surface and atmospheric temperatures on Mars, the Jovian and Saturnian moons, and Pluto!)

This topic will continue to generate a lot of commentary. I won't say it will create a lot of debate because you cannot debate with true believers, particularly with those of the AGW faith.

And so it goes.

While not quite as prominent in the media as it has been, the debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming still goes on.

As I posted recently, sixteen concerned scientists wrote and signed a letter stating there is no need to panic about global warming. When I wrote that post I had barely skimmed through the 2700+ comments. Now that I've had a couple of days to look them over, it appears the AGW faithful came out in full force, decrying the sixteen and doing their best to diminish the stature of those scientists. They also kept repeating the same old discredited talking points as if that's all the justification that was needed. Others seemed to pull numbers, 'facts', and statistics out of thin air with no relevant cites to back up their claims about CO₂. Some tried to very hard to discredit any AGW skeptics by claiming they had been bought and paid for by the oil companies, again with no corroborating evidence to back up their claims. Far too many of them had no basic understanding of scientific method and what it meant when data sets of climate data were 'destroyed', making it impossible to check the results of "tens of thousands" of climate researchers. (That was another thing that bugged me as well as some of the commenters - claims by the faithful that "tens of thousands" climate scientists all agreed that AGW was fact. Somehow I doubt that there are that many researchers out there studying this issue. It seems like just another 'fact' pulled out of thin air. A few commenters challenged these claims but no backing evidence or cites were ever produced.)

Calls for drastic actions to 'save the planet' were made again and again, but not one of saying they were needed could give us any details about what we puny humans could possibly do to affect the chaotic system that is called climate to save something that needs no saving, other than to 'decarbonize' our civilization, which usually entails impoverishing the West.

Again we have to ask the question of the faithful: Cui bono?

The case for the "incontrovertible" and "settled Science" of AGW has suffered yet another series of blows. First, it appears there has been no warming over the past 15 years, claims by the warmists notwithstanding. The the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, home of ClimateGate and ClimateGate 2.0, reports that there has been no appreciable warming in that time period.

None of that stops the AGW faithful, who aren't letting things like actual data get in the way of their beliefs.

Then sixteen prominent scientists sign a letter saying there is no need to panic about global warming. The letter pokes holes in some of the claims made by AGW proponents and questions the motivations of those who have abandoned any pretense of scientific objectivity.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Cui bono? indeed.

As more evidence points to climate change being a natural phenomenon one has to ask this question of the AGW proponents: Who are the 'deniers'? The AGW faithful who pick and chose data that backs their claims while ignoring data that contradicts their beliefs? Or those who look at all the data and find it does not support the claims for AGW?

I know, I'm a few days late on this, but I'm still trying to catch up. Gimme a break. I've been sick.

Now that government subsidies for ethanol have ended, as have the tariffs on Brazilian ethanol, what will the effect be fuel prices? In the end, probably not a whole lot. After all, ethanol is only 10% of the volume in E10 gasolines. Assuming Brazilian ethanol becomes more popular with blenders, you might see an approximate 5¢ per gallon drop in gasoline using it. For blenders using US corn ethanol, you might see an equivalent rise in price. But the main thing is that you and I and everyone else will be paying for it up front rather than having the cost of it buried by taxpayer funded subsidies (to the tune of $6 billion a year).

As many of you know, I am not a fan of gasoline/ethanol blend fuels. They cause too many problems, particularly in small engines (lawnmowers, snow blowers, chainsaws, etc.) and in marine use, where nominally humid conditions can cause the ethanol to settle out and clog the fuel systems of boats, something I've had to deal with over the past couple of years. And while the end of subsidies and tariffs are a good thing, that will not make me like the blended fuels. There are still too many downsides. (One of the 'benefits' of ethanol sold to us by the EPA was that it would make gasoline burn cleaner. And it does..for carbureted engines. But it has no effect on fuel injected engines other than decreasing fuel economy by 5%. This is a benefit?) Of course the EPA wants to boost the ethanol content in fuels to 15%, but so far the Congress has said "No". Even Congress understands the downsides to such a move and the EPA has not shown the move will be beneficial to anyone but the EPA and ethanol producers.

Yes, I know it's Christmas Eve. I could easily do a feel-good Christmas story since there are appear to be a plethora of them out there this year. But that smacks far too much of me-too-ism. And while I am just as guilty as many bloggers out there of doing that from time to time, I don't want to do that today. No siree. Instead, I'm going to focus on something incredibly stupid that only a government bureaucracy could pull off.

To which government bureaucracy am I referring?

The EPA.

Let's face it folks, it has become a force for interfering in the business of America, which is business. Nonsense rules with little scientific backing or study have done more to harm our economic revival than just about any other Obama mechanism. It is one of the few federal agencies that can promote two contradictory views at the same time, all in the name of "protecting the environment."

One of the latest B.S directives deals with mercury, specifically mercury emitted by coal-burning power plants. Never mind that the amount of mercury emitted at present is miniscule and that to reduce it even more has reached the point of diminishing returns. But then the EPA also has no concerns for the mercury contained in CFL bulbs which can expose the populace to levels of mercury magnitudes of order higher than what comes out of the smokestack of a power plant.

See? Two contradictory stances at the same time. But then the EPA has an agenda that us purely political, one that ignores science. It's all about feel-good rules that do nothing to protect the environment from real threats while harping on minutiae.

One of the other things the EPA ignores about atmospheric mercury: most of it reaching the ground in the US comes from China. We have no control over Chinese emissions and I doubt very much they'll listen to Obama's EPA. (Obama lost credibility with the Chinese quite some time ago.) China will do what it needs to do to expand its economy and if that means ignoring mercury emissions that affect countries on the other side of the Pacific.

This isn't the first time the EPA has tried to control effects of emissions from outside the US with ridiculous rules that have little effect of the environment but cost businesses in the US millions, if not billions of dollars to implement. This kind of useless bureaucratic incompetence (or malfeasance) must end.

Call this one a two-fer, covering two different aspects of AGW skepticism.

First, comes a peer reviewed article in Science that covers a study questioning the sensitivity of Earth's climate to CO₂ concentrations.

In particular, the study suggests that the probable sensitivity of the earth's climate to increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far lower than the assumptions traditionally used by the (already discredited) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Not only that, the authors find that the existence of a so-called "fat tail" -- the notion that extreme temperature changes in response to increases in atmospheric CO2 are likely -- is illusory.

If this is indeed the case, then many of the defective climate models being used to predict climate catastrophe just became even more defective, and therefore, even less predictive of what future climate might be like.

Then, comes a follow up on the discrediting of the Mann 'hockey stick' graph.

You may be asking yourself "Why is he covering this again?" It's simple, really: far too many true believers still cite the Mann graph as incontrovertible proof of AGW.

I've had more debates with a number of them bringing up the graph as if it were holy writ despite the fact that once Mann allowed both his data sets and the algorithms used to analyze the data to be evaluated, both were found to be so profoundly flawed that the results were meaningless. When random data was used with the algorithms, the hockey stick was still there (though to a different amplitude), meaning the graph was built into the formula. That's not science. That's fraud. (Or possibly it's incompetence, but I'm learning more towards the former than the latter.)

The text of the ClimateGate 2.0 e-mails quoted in the linked post question the validity of Mann's work, with some lamenting their decisions not to question his work. One in particular tested Mann's algorithms, finding them wanting.

4241.txt: Rob Wilson again: " The whole Macintyre issue got me thinking...I first generated 1000 random time-series in Excel ... The reconstructions clearly show a 'hockey-stick' trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about. "

4369.txt: Tim Osborn says " This completely removes most of Mike's arguments... "  and Ed Cook replies "I am afraid that Mike is defending something that  increasingly can not be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead."

When colleagues of Mann's are questioning the validity of his work and his emotional investment in his results, then we must question whether they are the results of science or just wishing it were true. In this case it is the second rather than the first.

And so dies the "incontrovertible proof".

I find it interesting that the AGW faithful aren't using new data to conclude climate change is All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans. Much of the same kind of data they're using to 'prove' global warming is due solely to human activity was used back in 1973 to prove the same thing about global cooling, proposing many of the same 'solutions' to fix the problem.

In 1973 I attended an Ecology Symposium at Ohio State University meant for faculty and graduate students in the auditorium of the engineering school. I was an undergrad, but I sneaked in among the several hundred attendees, an got a seat in the back of the auditorium before the doors were shut. I heard several presentations and lectures by a distinguished panel of professors and researchers from other universities speaking on the approaching perilous demise of planet earth by global cooling. The earth was literally beginning to freeze because mankind was using too much fossil fuels so that the pollution was blocking the suns rays and its warmth.

The consensus of the distinguished panel was that our end was certain by 1980, or 1985 at the latest. The northern polar ice cap was going to expand rapidly, devouring first Canada, then the upper half of the United States. Canadians were going to flood the U.S. and they, and Americans would then flee south to Mexico and Central America triggering a bloody war as those Latinos would have to fight off the invasion. In the midst of this bloody war, America's bread basket would be gone as our fertile land could no longer feed the rest of the world as it would be under ice. The end result would be the loss of at least 75% of the planet's human population.

The solution offered by this august group of distinguished experts: Americans, and only Americans, would have to surrender their cars, single family homes, all of their electric gadgets, and their individual liberties to a strong central government which would hire these, and like-minded experts who would forever manage our society. The rest of the world could be permitted to press on as they were because they were not guilty of our over-consumption of the world's resources.

I also have copy of the Jan 13, 1972 issue of the Columbus Dispatch with lead editorial on the demise of mankind from over-population. It recommended the implementation of the President's Commission on Over-population. . . . president Nixon's commission. According to this AP editorial, we had mere months to get moving on this matter or face extinction. The solution: Americans had to surrender. . . . etc.

You get the point.

Funny how regardless of whatever crisis conjured up by our ruling elites the solution is the same.

I've noticed that, too. Just about any crisis, even a faux crisis, will be used as an excuse to expand the power of our self-defined and self-delusional ruling elite. After all, they know much better how to run our lives than we do. And because they do, they will be exempt from the restrictions placed upon the rest of us because of the 'burdens' they bear on our behalf.

Yeah. Right.

I don't know about you, but I know I'm tired of hearing the uninformed trying to mislead the rest of us about our energy reserves, energy technologies (particularly proven technologies), and so-called "green" energy, which is anything but. They push untruths in an effort to fundamentally change America even though it is in no one's best interests (except theirs) to do so. Do they really think they're saving anything other than the last vestiges of a morally bankrupt and failed ideology?

Probably.

Just listen to this and you'll probably get angry at them, and particularly The One.


(H/T Maggie's Farm)

OK, so I misspoke about what Part 2 would be about. Originally I was going to cover energy, but thoughts and righteous indignation about the EPA overrode that plan.

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One of the government agencies that has most recently caused FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) among business, and indirectly the people, is the EPA.

While it is the EPA's purview to help safeguard the environment, lately it has been going outside its mandate and trying to regulate economic activities it sees as affecting the environment. This is particularly vexing considering both Congress and the courts have told the EPA they do not have power to do so.

One of the EPA's latest 'crusades' involves energy. In this case making sure it is less available and far more costly. In particular they're trying to impose stricter regulations on the electric utilities and oil companies, bypassing the usual means of doing so and imposing them without the consent of Congress.

Jeff Holmstead, who directed the EPA's air and radiation office from 2001 to 2005 during the Republican President George W. Bush's administration, told the commission the new rules will quickly change policies that have been stable for 40 years. He called the new regulations an "unprecedented" amount of change for power companies.

Part of the problem is that some of the EPA's new rules overlap and contradict many existing rules, both its own and those of other governmental agencies and departments overseeing the energy industry. This leaves the power companies and oil exploration and drilling firms in a bind, making it impossible for them to be in compliance with all the rules and regulations imposed upon them. The EPA also ignores state rules and regulators rather than working with them, which only adds to the confusion.

This is a government agency that has gone rogue and believes it doesn't have to answer to anybody. It ignores the law, ignores the courts, ignores Congress, and ignores the Constitution. It believes it is above the law. It hands down edicts and expects everyone to follow them without question or dissent regardless of the effects on the economy or the environment.

Don't believe me? Then how about the EPA's efforts to 'clean up' the upper Hudson River in an attempt to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) embedded in the silt at the bottom of the river? Their clean up has done far more harm than if they'd left things alone.

By ordering a dredging operation along 40 miles of the Hudson, the EPA has created a disaster of governmental proportions in this quiet upstate community. For six months in 2009, floating clamshell diggers shoveled day and night, pulling sludge from the river bottom around Fort Edward and depositing it onto barges. Six days a week, 24 hours a day, these barges, containing a total of 286,000 cubic yards of sediment mixed with old PCBs, were offloaded into that massive dewatering facility. There the soggy material was treated and squeezed in giant presses. The cakes of compacted sludge were then moved by truck onto 81-car trains, parked on a new spur of the Canadian Pacific Railway extending into the site. Five of these trains were in constant rotation, circulating the 4,400-mile round trip between the facility and the final dump site in Texas.

It was a Herculean attempt at remediation but one that actually increased PCB levels in the Hudson for a time; it also wreaked havoc on locals' lives and imposed huge costs on General Electric. And all this work was only "Phase I" of the EPA's plans. The government is now compelling GE to spend billions of dollars on Phase II, an even larger and longer operation. Dredging will recommence this spring.

And once they start dredging again the PCB levels will rise dramatically and stay that way as long as they continue removing all that silt on the river bottom. That doesn't even take into account the huge amounts of energy expended or pollution generated to clean up the river. They would have been better off to leave it where it was. It wasn't going to go anywhere. Instead, they've made things worse all in the name of "Saving The Environment." It's yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming into play. Government agencies are pretty good at invoking it.

Maybe it's time to rein in the EPA, to remind them that they work for us and not the other way around. Better yet, to ensure they get the message it might be worthwhile to slash their funding to zero for year. Then refund it the following year after an exhaustive review of the EPA's overreach and implementation of proper controls upon the agency.

A few weeks ago my post quoting one of the unfortunate truisms we live under - how regulated portions of the economy tend to have the biggest problems - struck a chord with one of my commenters.

Apparently she believes we don't have enough regulation, citing the problems caused by shady banking practices that helped bring down the economy as the only justification for even more regulation. I came back at her with the problems within the telecommunications industry because of heavy-handed regulation, much of it at the behest of "rent-seekers". Such 'regulation' is crony capitalism at its worst and in the end benefits no one except the rent-seekers. And even they feel the negative effects eventually, making far less money than they might have otherwise and costing the consumers plenty.

There are plenty of other examples of regulation having exactly the opposite effect from the one most would expect. The question is, where to start?

How about one of my favorite targets, gasoline? Or should I say ethanol in gasoline?

Ethanol

The EPA, in it's push to clean up the tailpipe emissions of anything that burns gasoline, decided that pump gas needed something that would help gas burn cleaner, thereby reducing pollution. At first that something was MTBE. MTBE certainly helped engines with carburetors burn cleaner, but it had little effect on fuel injected engines. Unfortunately MTBE had a serious side effect.

While it helped gas burn cleaner, it also polluted water supplies as it was a hydrophilic substance, meaning it was chemically attracted to water. Unfortunately the water it was attracted to far too often was that in out municipal water supplies and private wells. MTBE started showing up in places it didn't belong. It didn't help things that it's also considered a carcinogen.

So in its wisdom, the EPA banned the use of MTBE and decided ethanol would make a great substitute. Like MTBE ethanol also helped gasoline burn cleaner with the added benefit of boosting the octane rating of gasoline. While the water pollution problem was solved, other problems raised their ugly heads, some of them quite costly to deal with.

Like MTBE, ethanol is hydrophilic. It absorbs water. The problem with it is that if it absorbs enough water it separates from the gasoline, turns into a yellowish sludge, and settles to the bottom of the tank. This has two effects. First, it lowers the octane rating of the gasoline. Second, the sludge will clog the fuel systems of the vehicles it's used in.

On more than one occasion I've written about the problems with ethanol in marine gas and how it costs boat owners millions in repairs. The same holds true in other areas, such as small gas-powered equipment. Lawnmowers, chain saws, weed-trimmers, snowblowers, generators, lawn tractors, and a whole host of other equipment don't get along with 90/10 gasoline/ethanol mix presently being sold in the US. Corrosion, detonation, and deterioration of plastic/rubber parts in the fuel systems plague otherwise trouble-free gas powered equipment.

But that's not the whole story of ethanol. There are other unintended consequences created by the use of ethanol as a fuel component.

One of the biggest is the effects on food prices, followed only by the greater pollution generated by its production.

When land previous used to grow food is now used to grow the feedstock for ethanol (corn), the supply of food goes down and prices go up. More pollution is created when those feedstock crops are grown because the farmers will use even more fossil fuels and petroleum-based fertilizers to grow them. The amount of energy derived from the ethanol created from those crops barely equals the amount of energy used to grow and process those crops in the first place.

But do you know what the biggest irony of this story is? Gasoline/ethanol fuels don't help fuel-injected engines burn any cleaner than straight gasoline does. These days, how many engines in cars and trucks sold over the past decade and a half or so aren't fuel injected? None of them.

Oh, and one other thing we must remember about ethanol: it contains less energy per gallon than gasoline, meaning you need to burn more of it to get an equivalent amount of power out of the engine using it. What that means is you get fewer miles per gallon with ethanol-blended gasoline than you do with straight gasoline. And this is good how?

Air Pollution Other Than Tailpipe Emissions

Here's another area where the EPA has gotten it wrong, and it's all going to cost us plenty with little return seen for what we spend.

First, I have to ask you out there how many times you've heard this refrain: "It's just awful! Air pollution is getting worse all the time!"

I've heard it far too often over the past 10 years or so. There's only one problem...it's a lie.

I can't speak for you, but I can honestly say I remember the days when the smog was so bad in some cities that it cast a dark brown pall over them. Automobiles, trucks, power plants, and factories spewed all kinds of noxious fumes from their tailpipes and smoke stacks. The air stank of all kinds of chemicals and partially burned hydrocarbons, even in many of the smaller cities.

Can we honestly say that is the case today? Not by a long shot.

But what effluvia still spews into the atmosphere isn't necessarily the fault of those generating it so much as it's the rather rigid rules created by the EPA that makes it far more expensive to clean up the emissions from the smokestacks than it needs to be. What do I mean by this? Call it the All-Or-Nothing rule.

Let's use coal-fired power plants in the mid-West as an example of the shortsightedness of this rule.

At one point during the Bush Administration, the president wanted to relax rules that would make it easier for the aforementioned coal plants to upgrade their systems to make them more efficient. The upgrades would also have the side effect of making the plants run cleaner than they would without the upgrades. But those upgrades also meant they had to go well beyond those changes and install scrubbers and other air pollution controls as if the plants were brand new. New plants had to meet far stricter emissions requirements than the older plants. The cost to make the older plants meet the new requirements exceeded that of building a new plant. Under EPA rules the utilities had two choices - spend far too much money to upgrade the old plants to meet new plant requirements, or don't do the upgrades at all. There was no in-between solution as far as the EPA was concerned.

So what happened?

President Bush was lambasted by Congressional Democrats and enviro-socialists for "allowing his buddies in the energy industry" to pollute the air all in the name of obscene profits. Congress killed any chance the utilities would get a waiver to reduce their emissions less than the EPA wanted them to. The end effect: the coal plants were not upgraded, their efficiencies were not increased, and their emissions did not decrease. Yet somehow the EPA and the left saw this as a victory for the environment. They wanted the whole thing but they ended up with nothing at all and everyone downstream of those plants are still paying the price.

This is yet another case where government regulation had the opposite effect from that intended.

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This is the first in a series of posts dealing with the problems of government regulation overstepping its bounds and causing far more harm than good.

Part 2 will cover energy and how the government regulations are making sure we'll have less of it at a much higher costs.

Since I regaled you with the tale of the sort of semi-spectacular failure of the WP Parent's HDTV earlier this week, a timely opinion piece by Sam Kazman has appeared, lamenting the poor quality of today's washing machines. And not so much the quality of the machines, per se, but their inability to actually clean clothes.

Call it another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming back to bite us all in the a**...er...wallet.

What's caused this decline in their ability to get clothes clean? Three words:

Energy efficiency mandates.

Front-loaders meet federal standards more easily than top-loaders. Because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads, they use less hot water and therefore less energy. But, as Americans are increasingly learning, front-loaders are expensive, often have mold problems, and don't let you toss in a wayward sock after they've started.

In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches "nearly as dirty as they were before washing." "For the first time in years," CR said, "we can't call any washer a Best Buy." Contrast that with the magazine's 1996 report that, "given warm enough water and a good detergent, any washing machine will get clothes clean." Those were the good old days.

In 2007, only one conventional top-loader was rated "very good." Front-loaders did better, as did a new type of high-efficiency top-loader that lacks a central agitator. But even though these newer types of washers cost about twice as much as conventional top-loaders, overall they didn't clean as well as the 1996 models.

So how much energy is being saved if we have to wash our clothes more than once to get them clean? How much is being saved if we have to wash smaller loads for the same reason? If I had to guess, I'd say not much, if at all. (We're fortunate here at The Manse as we have an 11-year old front-loader that does a great job cleaning clothes. We've thought about replacing it and our not-very-good clothes drier with new models that would allow us to stack them in the laundry nook, but now I'm not so sure.)

Remember, this is the same government that has mandated the elimination of incandescent light bulbs, use of low-water volume flush toilets, and a host of other energy 'saving' appliances. The problem is that most of these energy saving measures don't work very well and the savings are minuscule or non-existent, all while costing us more to buy.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the low-volume flush toilets. Sometimes it takes more than one flush for it to properly dispose of the effluvia deposited in them, and the low water volume sometimes prevents the aforementioned effluvia from making it all the way to the septic tank or sewer system, clogging the drain pipes. If the government really wants us to save water, then maybe they should spend time and money on more effective means like fixing the leaky public water systems that waste far more water than 'normal' toilets would during their entire lifetime.

(H/T Instapundit)

UPDATE 3/19/11: It turns out Jay Tea wrote a diatribe about this same subject a few days ago. We're on the same page on this one.

Bogie has added her two cents worth as well.

It didn't take long for the anti-nuclear power hysteria to start up here in the US after the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility came to light.

It seems shortly after the first report of trouble, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) called for a moratorium on the permitting or building of any new nuclear plants in the US. Never mind that the nuclear plants in Japan are 40 years old. Never mind that they're of a Generation II design no one builds any more. Never mind that any new plants planned in the US are Generation III or IV plants, neither of which require the active cooling measures of Generation I or II plants. (The new reactors are convection cooled, meaning the heat of the reactors causes the cooling liquid to flow. No pumps are required.)

Other anti-nuclear organizations jumped on the bandwagon in an effort to stifle any further construction of nuclear plants. Many of these same groups also have a tendency to call for "green" power, but when such green alternative energy systems are proposed, they protest against them, too. And even if they are built, they'll then protest the power lines needed to carry that green power to the people who need it. It's a no-win situation with them.

They need to get a life.

As if California isn't already suffering from an insurmountable budget deficit, confiscatory taxes, public employee union greed, a spendthrift legislature, business hostile regulations, and a 12.2%+ unemployment rate, the California Air Resources Board is about to drive the final nail in the coffin of the state's economy with their version of cap-and-trade.

That's all California needs is yet another series of money draining 'rules' that will do little other than place an even higher burden on businesses already struggling to survive. Higher energy prices certainly aren't going to help them stay in business.

California air quality regulators are poised to adopt the nation's most sweeping regulations to give power plants, refineries and other major polluters a financial incentive to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

California's cap-and-trade rules would set up the largest U.S. carbon trading market as the way to enforce the state's gradually tightening cap on emissions.

The amount of allowed emissions would be reduced over time, and the regulations would expand in 2015 to include refineries and fuel distributors like oil companies. The cap would reach its lowest level in 2020, when California wants its greenhouse gas emissions reduced to 1990 levels.

If they handle this as well as the state previously handled electrical utility regulation - including the effective banning of new electrical generating capacity using traditional technology like nuclear - then California is doomed.

I wonder how long it will be before the old saw about the last person leaving the state shutting off the lights will become the truth?

Al Gore thinks ethanol is a bad idea. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle want to kill the taxpayer funded subsidies for ethanol and remove the tariffs from foreign ethanol. But you really know ethanol subsidies are in deep doo-doo when even the Washington Post believes tax dollars are being wasted on something that should be able to survive on its own.

For decades, the idea behind corn ethanol has been that fuel derived from the crop could diminish America's dependence on distasteful foreign regimes for fuel - it's done some of this - and cut carbon emissions - it's done little of this. Congress established an overlapping and expensive system of subsidies, requiring that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into the nation's gasoline, slapping tariffs on foreign ethanol and handing those who blend the fuel into gasoline a tax credit of 45 cents a gallon.

In other words, the government pays the industry for the privilege of selling to a captive market, spending $6 billion in 2009 on the tax credits alone. Without the tax credits, the amount of corn ethanol produced would still increase over the next 10 years, the Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri calculates.

While subsidies may have been used to start the corn ethanol industry, the reason for them to continue no longer exists. If the ethanol industry cannot stand on its own by now then it should be allowed to fail. It isn't up to the taxpayers to keep funding it. Either it will survive or it won't.

And to this point no one has convinced me it's even a 'necessary' industry as I find the argument put forward about the need to include ethanol in gasoline to be weak. In some cases it's caused problems far beyond any perceived benefits and at a cost to consumers in the way of more frequent repairs to some fuel systems that don't tolerate ethanol very well.

First it's Al Gore turning his back on ethanol and the government subsidies supporting it. Now it's a bipartisan group of Senators looking to kill ethanol subsidies and the prohibitive tariffs keeping foreign ethanol and feedstocks out.

It has become increasingly apparent ethanol, or at least corn-derived ethanol, is not the answer to our energy problems or the efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Ethanol as it is presently produced here in the US is anything but carbon neutral and creates a net energy loss, meaning it uses more energy to produce it than it returns. As any economist can tell you, negative returns is one of the quickest ways to go bust and ethanol is nothing but negative returns.

If the ethanol industry can't stand on its own then it's time to stop wasting taxpayer dollars trying to prop it up, EPA mandates not withstanding.

You know the winds have shifted when Al Gore says the ethanol industry serves no useful purpose.

What? The sainted AlGore is against all these government subsidies for ethanol because it's a fraud?

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm stuck in an episode of Fringe.

Said AlGore:

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

That's true of any government subsidy. All anyone has to do is look at farm subsidies in general, a practice that has been going on for generations. All such subsidies do is waste tax dollars propping up some operation or industry that will no longer feel the need to change or innovate to the point where it no longer needs subsidies.

All of that aside, one must wonder if Al Gore has realized the error of his ways, or is he positioning himself to make another few hundred million dollars with government subsidies for yet another alternative energy scheme?

Only time will tell.

Bill Whittle addresses American Exceptionalism, something we know our present President doesn't like and has been working hard to destroy. But I think Obama will find that while he may dent it a bit, he doesn't have the wherewithal to overcome the sheer inertia of American Exceptionalism. American know-how and those providing it will always find a way around those in this country working hard to bring about its downfall.

One thing I found interesting: With only 5% of the world's population, American produces 24% of the world's GDP, which is 3 times more than China produces even though it has over 4 times as many people.

I'm sorry to link to a story Matt Drudge links to, but when I heard about it on the BBC NewsPod a day or two ago it is remarkable to understand that the UN's IPCC used as its source a 1999 mass market magazine. Hardly a reputable scientific source. The parallels are eerie to the breathless report I heard on Good Morning America by Charlie Gibson in 1993 on the reported forty percent increase of violence perpetrated against women. When the source of that was unraveled, it was found to be utterly bogus. Advocacy statitics. Like ten percent of people are gay or lesbian. Advocacy statistics. Like the glaciers are melting in the Himalayas because of man's spewing out of carbon dioxide, that beneficial plant food.

Man-made global warming increasingly looks to be on the ropes. It's time to debate, Algore! He won the Nobel Prize, after all.