FOX NEWS

NOT EASY BEING GREEN

Thursday , March 22, 2007

By Terry Keenan

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It's not easy being green. Just ask former Vice President Al Gore.

While the newly anointed Oscar winner has made what Katie Couric called a "triumphant return" to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Gore was tripped up by a simple question from Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. Late into the hearing, Inhofe showed Gore a clip from his film, "An Inconvenient Truth." The clip challenged the audience with this question: "Are you ready to change the way you live?"

Simple enough. But Inhofe took this question a step further, by placing it right at the foot of the former vice president. Correctly noting that Gore is adored by hundreds of thousands for his green message, Inhofe asked the Tennessee Democrat if he'd be willing to pledge to "consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?"

It was a "gotcha" moment, and one that was not widely reported in the mainstream media. Gore refused to take the pledge, adding that, "we live a carbon-neutral life."

Get ready to hear a lot about carbon-neutral living in the days and months ahead. It's the new euphemism for Escalade-driving environmentalists who "purchase" carbon credits to assuage any guilt about their private jets and 20,000 square foot summer homes.

In fact there is a $100 million dollar bull market in such credits — and it’s growing, with for-profit companies such as TerraPass, selling credits that give wealthy Americans a "pass" when it comes to actually cutting down on their own carbon consumption. The idea is so hot that several business schools have begun programs in environmental finance.

How do these carbon offsets actually work? Well, like a charm if you're in the business of buying your way out of looking like a hypocrite. And, if you're actually sincere about protecting the environment — well, the jury's out on that one.

In theory, these carbon credits could have a positive effect on the planet, by encouraging companies to cash-in on environmentally friendly practices by "selling" their credits to gas-guzzling greenies and the like. But a recent study by Businessweek shows that, in many cases, the environmental changes that resulted in companies earning these carbon offsets were just sound business moves, and had nothing to do with being environmentally friendly. As was the case with a huge garbage dump in Arkansas — the carbon credits were just a fortunate coincidence of decisions made by its owner, Waste Management, years ago. Other schemes were just that — a lot of hot air.

Yet Gore and the other greenies seem to be sleeping well at night, content that all of this paper shuffling allows them to live in carbon neutral bliss. What power these little credits possess — conferring upon their owners the right to consume carbon with abandon, while enjoying the moral high ground to lecture to the rest of us to cut back on energy.

Could Kermit have it wrong? Maybe it is easy being green after all.

Terry Keenan is anchor of Cashin’ In and is a FOX News Channel business correspondent.

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THE POLITICO

THE REAL INCONVENIENT TRUTH

BY SENATOR JAMES INHOFE  

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March 19, 2007

When the old gray lady says it's over, it's over.

The New York Times -- nearly a year late -- is finally recognizing the scientific reality regarding fears of a man-made climate catastrophe. On March 13, a landmark article stated "scientists argue that some of (former Vice President Al) Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous."

It appears we are all skeptics now.

It's about time the Times joined the growing chorus of scientists criticizing the alarmism. Even the United Nations, despite all the media hoopla, halved its estimates for sea level rise since 2001 and reduced man's impact on the climate by 25 percent in a recent report. A separate U.N. report last year found that emissions from cows do more to drive global warming than C02 from cars.

An increasing number of government leaders and scientists are finally realizing that much of the motivation behind the climate scare has nothing to do with science.

Recently, prominent French scientist Claude Allegre recanted his belief in man-made catastrophic global warming and now says promotion of the idea is motivated by money. (This coming from a French Socialist, no less.)

Other scientists have joined Allegre. One of Israel's top young astrophysicists, Nir Shaviv, recently reversed his opinion, declaring that the link between emissions and climate variability was nothing more than "circumstantial evidence." The United Kingdom's famed environmental activist David Bellamy also recently converted to skepticism. Meteorologist Reid Bryson has switched from a promoter of the 1970s global cooling scare to a global warming skeptic today.

New research by teams of international scientists is revealing that the sun has been a major driver of climate variability. Solar specialist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center explained, "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years."

The usual suspects will still insist that there is a "consensus" of scientists who agree with Gore. And yes, many governing boards and spokesmen of science institutions must toe the politically correct line of Gore-inspired science, but the rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling.

Just ask James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society. Spann, who has nearly 30 years of experience as a weather expert, said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." In February, a panel of meteorologists expressed unanimous climate skepticism, and one panelist estimated that 95 percent of his profession rejects global warming fears.

This shift follows a 2006 open letter by 60 prominent scientists to the Canadian prime minister stating, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary."

Leaders on Capitol Hill are also very late in recognizing this scientific awakening on climate variability.

There are more than half a dozen global warming proposals being floated about in both houses of Congress. They all have two things in common. The bills -- even if fully enacted -- would have a negligible impact on the climate. But the costs would be anything but negligible.

Don't take my word for it. The Washington Post in January clearly explained the hot air of Capitol Hill climate politics when it described a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).

"(Bingaman's) global warming bill aimed at getting bipartisan support in Congress could be implemented at modest economic cost but may do little to address the (climate) threat," the Post's Jan. 25 article stated.

The Post article continued by saying that under Sen. Bingaman's proposal, "Gasoline prices could be expected to increase by about 5 percent, electricity costs 4 percent."

Let me put this bluntly: Our political leaders in Washington are going to demand the American people make significant economic sacrifices by paying 4 percent more, 10 percent more or even higher for gasoline and home energy costs in order to "do something" to address the climate "crisis."

What do Americans get in return for this economic sacrifice?

They get real economic pain for no climate gain, and they get "solutions" that are purely symbolic. The American people may opt to shut down Washington, D.C., with a flood of phone calls, e-mails and faxes before they allow any of these "solutions" to become law.

Even the Kyoto Protocol -- a draconian international agreement -- would have a virtually undetectable impact on the climate, assuming full compliance and that its proponents were correct in their global warming predictions. But Kyoto would have a massive economic impact, imposing an estimated $300 billion tax -- 10 times larger than the previous biggest tax increase in U.S. history.

Europe and Canada are currently experiencing the utter failure of the Kyoto-style cap-and-trade approach. Thirteen of the EU-15 nations are failing to meet their emissions targets. Canada's environmental minister recently said that for his country to meet Kyoto's emission reduction target, it would suffer an economic collapse similar to the fall of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, China is on track to surpass the United States as the world's largest emitter within the year.

Ironically, climate skeptics may owe Gore, Hollywood, liberal environmental groups and the mainstream media a big debt of gratitude. If it were not for the shrill, "sky is falling" rhetoric emitted by the elite jet-setters hyping this issue, the silent majority of scientific experts who reject alarmism might not have been stirred to action.

The real inconvenient truth is that global warming fearmongers have overplayed their hand and are now suffering a massive scientific and media backlash. America needs a rational science debate about climate variability. Achieving that goal now appears closer to reality.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Washington Post columnist George Will, in his column “Fighting The Real Gridlock (March 11, 2007),” raised the important issue of highway congestion and the impact on the American people.

According to the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in 2003, the most recent year with complete data, congestion caused 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion of gallons of wasted fuel, for a total cost of $63 billion.  Total costs would be much higher if they included the intangible cost of delayed goods and services, which rely on an accountable and free flowing and reliable transportation network.  The Los Angeles area alone, the largest and most congested metro area in country, is responsible for a total estimated cost of congestion of $10.5 billion with an individual cost per rush-hour traveler of $1,598 a year; following Los Angeles is San Francisco at $2.6 billion and $1,224 and the Washington metro area at 2.4 billion and $1,169 per individual. 

The Washington Post

By George F. Will
Sunday, March 11, 2007; B07

It is peculiar: The secretary of transportation is not a household name. But Mary Peters -- now you know -- is more important than most public officials to improving America's economic dynamism and reducing the aggravation of everyday life.

It is perverse: In today's information-intensive economy, the costs of information often approach zero and the speed at which it moves approaches instantaneousness. But the speed that many users of information travel to where they use it to produce goods and services is slowing, and the costs of this are rising.

Traffic congestion is even worse than you think, according to Peters, a fourth-generation Arizonan and a grandmother whose preferred mode of transportation is her Harley-Davidson. In the past 20 years, congestion in the 85 largest cities has caused the number of hours lost each year by the average driver in rush hours to increase from 16 to 47. In the 13 largest cities, drivers are stuck in traffic the equivalent of nearly eight workdays. Congestion's immediate and indirect economic costs -- not including lost serenity, family time and civic engagement -- just begin with fuel and wear and tear on vehicles.

Innovative "just in time" delivery practices have enabled businesses to control inventories, thereby modulating business cycles. Congestion, however, is forcing supply-chain managers to hold larger inventories or build more distribution centers, thereby increasing the transportation and logistics components of gross domestic product.

In 2009, Peters says, the highway trust fund, largely filled by the federal gasoline tax (18.4 cents per gallon), will go into deficit. Because inertia usually governs the government, Congress might simply increase and index the tax, thereby avoiding two inconveniences: fresh thinking and departures from the status quo.

There must be new highways and new lanes on some old ones. But there also must be new ways -- made possible by new technologies -- of using lanes.

The usual scolds -- environmentalists, urban "planners," enthusiasts for public transit (less than 5 percent of the workforce uses it) -- argue that more highways encourage more driving ("induced demand") and hence are self-defeating. But as Ted Balaker and Sam Staley respond in their new book on congestion, " The Road More Traveled," among the 10 largest metropolitan areas, Los Angeles has the least pavement per person; Dallas has twice as much per person and half as much congestion. Furthermore, when new schools are built because old ones have become congested and then the new ones fill up with children from families attracted by new schools, who argues that building the new ones was a mistake?

The congestion crisis requires joining an old material -- concrete -- with new technologies. Toll highways or lanes can do what restaurants and movie theaters do -- use differential pricing to draw traffic to off-peak hours. Peters cites Interstate 15 in Southern California. It uses dynamic pricing, under which the continually varying cost of access to special lanes is posted on electronic signs. Changing the price as often as every six minutes prevents congestion. Another California highway that uses prices posted on a printed schedule has increased traffic flow 40 percent.

When taxpayers pay the gas tax, they do not know what they are buying -- except "Bridges to Nowhere" and other pork. When drivers pay a toll, they know exactly what they are getting -- life's most precious scarce thing, time.

Peters says there are large sources of private capital available for investments in transportation infrastructure. Indiana has leased its toll road to a private consortium that will have an incentive -- profit -- to use electronic toll collection rather than human collectors who slow traffic and sometimes cost twice as much as the tolls they collect.

Transportation innovations always have been prerequisites for America's growing prosperity. In 1815, the cost of moving goods 30 miles inland from an Atlantic port, over rutted roads that were impassable in wet weather, equaled the cost of moving the goods across the Atlantic. But soon America's first great transportation innovation, the Erie Canal, reduced the cost of shipping a ton of wheat from Buffalo to the port of New York from $100 to $10. Because of railroads and macadamized roads, the difference between the wholesale price of pork in Cincinnati and New York fell 90 percent.

Modernization of surface transportation infrastructure depends on Peters and like-minded visionaries persuading federal and state governments to abandon the inefficient dispensing of money by politically driven formulas and earmarks. New electronic technologies, harnessed to private capital and the profit motive, can nimbly use price incentives to produce new traffic patterns and driving habits, thereby increasing Americans' freedom to pursue happiness, speedily.

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