NC Media Watch

Prop 23 Update: Green Job Explosion a Pipe Dream

Russ Steele

During the Prop 23 debate our local left told us that an explosion of green job were going to bring California out of the recession and voting for Prop 23 was going to destroy that dream of green wealth. Now reality has set in and the pipe dream has exploded, and even the über-liberal New York Times has taken notice.

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

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A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

The weatherization program was initially delayed for seven months while the federal Department of Labor determined prevailing wage standards for the industry. Even after that issue was resolved, the program never really caught on as homeowners balked at the upfront costs.

Oh my, now what?  We told our local lefties, who were supporting the full implimentation of AB-32, that going green would be a job killer.  It did in Spain, which was often cited as a model for California to follow by our former RINO Governor. As the study demonstrated,  "Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent."

Exit Question:  How are we going to recover from this lefty driven green pipe dream?

Prop 23 Update: Shutting down the Green Energy Sector

Russ Steele

The UK Climate Policy Newwork points to an interesting story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by Don  Hopey: Corbett quietly turning off the lights on renewable energy.

Quietly but systematically, the Pennsylvanian administration has all but shut down the state Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Energy and Technology Deployment -- the state's primary energy office -- and removed directors and reassigned staff in the Office of Energy Management in the Department of General Services and the Governor's Green Government Council. It has also forbidden state executive agencies from signing contracts that support clean energy supply. One former DEP employee said of the Energy Office, "it's being taken apart piece-by-piece and the pieces are being thrown away.

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Pennsylvania is not the only state reassessing or reducing green policies. Governors and legislators have voiced similar concerns in Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, according to the Pew Research Center

While other states are folding up the green energy tent while California is prompting a dangerous dependency on renewable energy. This dependency will drive up energy costs for business  and citizens. As California energy prices climb higher and higher, those states with lower costs will begin to attract California business and those with high paying portable jobs. 

I find it interesting that Pennsylvania is benefiting from extensive shale gas drilling, which is producing cheap easily transportable fuel for power plants and the heating of homes and factories. This is exactly what the EPA and the environmentalist wackos were concerned about. They are trying to shut down shale gas drilling by banning "fracking" which an essential tool for securing this cheap energy.  The sooner we put EPA in a political coma the better off we will all be.

Finally, A Republican candidate with a strong opinion on AGW

Russ Steele

It is on every radio station news update.  Texas Gov. Rick Perry does not believe that climate change is caused by human activity. He even goes farther in New Hampshire today, when he stated that scientists are using phony climate change data to make a buck.

"A substantial number of scientists manipulated data to keep the money rolling in," said Perry.

This statement was reported by  the New Hampshire Union Leader editor Drew Cline in a tweet. Before that, Cline quoted Perry saying, "I do believe the issue of global warming has been politicized."

More can be found at TMPDC

I have to agree. There are billions of tax dollars being spent to study anthropogenic global warming. If scientist were to admit warming and cooling is a natural processes, and the most that CO2 emissions double can warm the planet is about 1.5 Fº, the government's global warming money tree would die. To protect their grants and money tree, scientist continue to promote the myth of AGW and the need to stop it by controlling CO2 emissions. Details on CO2 emissions here.

On the other hand, the RINO Mitt Romney believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to that pattern.  Just like I could not bring myself to vote for Meg Whitman because she would not take a strong position against AGW, I will not vote for Romney should be become the GOP Candidate. God for bid.  While Perry may not be the perfect candidate, he would take action to bring the EPA under control, and put an end to job killing regulations. If Perry is elected we can get back to drilling for gas and oil and shut down the bird shredders that are wiping out the American Eagle, and create jobs in the process.

Prop 23 Update: Renewable Energy Money Pit is Almost Empty

Russ Steele

During the Prop 23 vs AB-32 debate conservative bloggers warned the once the subsidies ran out the corporate interest in wind and solar would decline and than vanish. This morning P. Gosslin at The NoTricksZone blog has a English tranlation of a German language article in the German Technology Review.

The article starts with this introduction:

Companies of the finance-intense sector of renewable energy are getting their supply of cash cut off. Investors are opting for lower risk projects.

Gosslin's post continues: 

Almost everywhere globally governments are scaling back programs that support renewable energies.”
And so it’s only normal that venture capital companies are now opting out. Investment strategies are changing. Technology Review writes:

Germany, Italy and Spain are reducing subsidies, in America the money from the 2009 stimulus package is slowly running out.”

According to Technology Review, people want quicker returns and less risk. Well who doesn’t? Technology Review writes:

During the last years many finance companies began, however, to invest in long-term projects with high capital requirements. That only worked mainly because they were able to expect subsidies from the state. Thus hundreds of millions flowed into start-ups in solar technology, which first had to build expensive plants to get the technology ripe for the market. The profits came later, if at all.”

Now the state subsidies are shrinking and new startups will have little chance of competing against the already established companies – too risky. The bubble has nowhere to go but to implode. So watch the politicians soon scramble and start blaming “speculators” and “greedy finance companies” for the mess they themselves created, and then start calling for more financial regulation.

It is no wonder that Al Gore has "gone postal" his dream of huge profits have collapsed along with the flight of investors. We warned this would happend, but the proponents of AB-32 assured voters that it would not happen.  Now what?  Obama is killing coal power, the EPA is trying to stop the development of shale gas with the banning of proven drilling techniques, and now investors are running from renewables. One has to ask, What Now? 

Prop 23 Update: Anthony asks a critical question

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts has an interesting post on the Death of a carbon salesman: Chicago Climate Exchange

The Chicago Climate Change is no more.  Here is his question:

Makes you wonder what the bloviator in chief at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), Mary Nichols is going to do with their much ballyhooed (but delayed) idea of carbon trading in California?

Al Gore, party of one, your rubber room is ready (Updated)

Russ Steele

I was not going to post this embarassing rant by Al Gore at the Aspen Institute, but it is hilarious, and the jokes that Al is creating with his rant are priceless. I am hoping readers can top the one in the title of this post on Twitter by the Iowahawk.   Here is Al Gore in rant mode:

Update (08-09-11, 20:45)  Poor Al, he did not know that his talk was being streamed on the Internet and was public, not an off the cuff private talk for the fully washed and the unwashed public got an ear full of the real Al Gore.   Details are here.

More evidence that cosmic rays influence our climate

Russ Steele

Professor Pulinets, from the Institute of Applied Geo- physics, Moscow, addressed the Schiller
Institute conference in Rüsselsheim, Germany, on 2 July 2011 and he asked an interesting question, Are Earthquakes Foreseeable? and then examines The Current State of Research.

Professor Pulinets discusses ionization in the atmosphere as part of his earthquake research.
One source of ionization is cosmic rays. He briefly examines the idea that cosmic rays
impact the climate. Here is one of his graphics from his paper showing the relationship of
rain fall to cosmic rays.


This is fascinating paper on the prediction of earth quakes. Highly recommend reading. It is
available here.

Cross posted at The Dalton Minimum Returns.

American's growing distrust of climate scientist

Russ Steele

Who would have thought? Click for a larger image.

H/T to ICSC for the graphic.

Oh Crap, we are doomed by climate change acording to the NRDC.

Russ Steele

According to KQED Climate Watch:

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released an interactive tool today that maps climate-related health risks across the country, including extreme heat, poor air quality, drought, flooding, and infectious diseases. The maps present a snapshot of current health vulnerabilities using recent data at the state and county levels.

I typed in my zip code, and discovered that we highly vunerable to 20 days of extream high flow by the water shed, but less than 15 days of drought,  no vulnerability to Dengue Fever, and only 9 to 13 days of more that expected extream heat, but oh my god and more than one day of unhealthy ozone exposure.

All this scary crap is brought to you by the NRDC here, Type in your own zip code and get scared.

Exit question: Do you feel that climate change is a threat to your health? Really? Why?

A clear example of why California is broke!

Russ Steele

I received a notice from the California Water Plan eNews that the California Ocean Protection Council has prepared a Strategic Action Plan for ocean and coastal protection for public review. Plan here. The draft plan was developed to provide a vision and direction for advancing ecosystem management and ocean protection over the next five years.

The OPC was created on September 23, 2004 when Governor Schwarzenegger signed the California Ocean Protection Act. This act created the California Ocean Protection Council. The OPC is currently staffed by 5.5 full-time staff persons, a California Sea Grant fellow, and an Executive Director and is funded by taxpayer bonds.

The California Ocean Protection Act established the California Ocean Protection Trust Fund in the State Treasury, to be used for projects and activities authorized by the OPC. The largest source of funds to date has been from bonds, and the OPC has approximately $14.6M of Proposition 84 - 2006 Safe Drinking Water Bond Act funds remaining as of December 2011. Potential additional sources of funding include new bond initiatives, mitigation funds, or other grant or private funds. Can we say from to AB-32 Cap and Trade slush fund?

According  to the Strategic Action Plan one of the focus areas for the California Ocean Protection Council is climate change and the need for mitigation.

There is scientific consensus that climate change is already causing adverse impacts to the California coast and ocean and poses a severe threat for the future. Sea-level rise (SLR) will lead to increased flooding and erosion from severe storms and will profoundly alter California‘s coast and bays in coming years. Ocean acidification and warming ocean temperatures are projected to result in substantial changes to ocean conditions and processes, and may fundamentally alter ocean ecosystems. In turn, these ecosystem changes are expected to impact productivity of our coastal waters, which will directly affect California‘s fisheries. In recognition of the broad- reaching influence of climate change on ocean and coastal resources, most of the focal areas for the OPC Strategic Action Plan include some consideration of this issue.

First off there is no “scientific consensus that climate change is already causing adverse impacts to the California coast and ocean and poses a severe threat for the future.”

Second ocean acidification is a phony issue, CO2 is a life-giving gas in the oceans. David Middleton examines this issue at Watt Up With That. Claims have been made that oceanic pH levels have declined from ~8.2 to ~8.1 since the mid-1700′s. Wow, that is big decline in 250 years!   What evidenced do we have the oceans have been acidifying over the last 250 years? Nearly none! More details here.

Third, the OPC has decided not to tackle the sea-level rise, deferring to another California agency wasting our tax money which I have discussed here and here.

So, what we have here is another California Commission spending our tax dollars to solve non-existing problems. It is no wonder that we are broke.

Exit Question:  How may other California Commissions do we have that are trying to solve non-existing problems with your tax dollars?