Tag: cost-benefit Analyses

Cost-benefit analyses are done to determine if an action is worthwhile based on the difference between the costs involved in the action versus the value of the benefits involved.

 

Climate Politics Abroad Are Turning Decidedly Skeptical

by H. Stirling Burnett, PhD

[This article is a reprint from the Climate Change Weekly, #322, with the permission of the author/editor of that periodical.  The Climate Change Weekly is published by the Heartland Institute.  The original article is available here.  This article should be of particular interest to our forum in light of the recent discussions regarding progress, or lack thereof, in getting the skeptical point of view out to the general populace.  One might conclude from this article that the skeptical community with help from climate economics may be seeing more success in changing minds than we might have thought.  Ed.]

H. STERLING BURNETT Contact: [email protected] 214-909-2368

From Alberta to Australia, from Finland to France and beyond, voters are increasingly showing their displeasure with expensive energy policies imposed by politicians in an inane effort to fight purported human-caused climate change.

Skepticism about whether humans are causing dangerous climate change has always been higher in the United States than in most industrialized countries. As a result, governments in Europe, Canada, and in other developed countries are much farther along the energy-rationing path that cutting carbon dioxide emissions requires than the United States is.
Residents in these countries have begun to revolt against the higher energy costs they suffer under as a result of ever-increasing taxes on fossil fuels Continue reading “Climate Politics Abroad Are Turning Decidedly Skeptical”

Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) with a Doubling of CO2

by Bernie McCune

[Note:  This post is based on a presentation by Bernie McCune given at the 16 March 2019 meeting of the Cruces Atmospheric Sciences Forum in Las Cruces, NM. Ed.]

It has been 40 years this year since the Charney Report was published with a number of proposals for what CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere from http://blog.friendsofscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/A-willie-soon-tarot-card-part-9-156x300.jpghuman sources would likely do to global surface temperatures or so-called anthropogenic global warming.  Similarly, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed about that same time to determine the effects of human activity on global temperature.

Over the next few decades a large number of models (at least 73) were developed to show what these effects might be and terms for the models were devised.

Two of these terms, Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) and Transient Climate Response (TCR), were developed.  The ECS was the term that Continue reading “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) with a Doubling of CO2”

Cold Weather Reveals Electric Cars Are Still Toys for the Wealthy

Original Article by Steven Titch

[Note:  This is an edited version of Steven Titch’s[note]Steven Titch is a technology policy analyst based in Texas, and he is a policy adviser with the Heartland Institute..[/note] Feb 14th, 2019 article with the same title on https://morningconsult.com/opinions/cold-weather-reveals-electric-cars-still-toys-wealthy/  Edits were made by Dr. David Tofsted[note]David Tofsted was born near Philadelphia. His father was from the mid-west and his mother’s family lived near Philadelphia since revolutionary times. He graduated from Penn State with a physics degree and came to New Mexico in 1980 as a Signal Corps officer with the US Army, working at White Sands Missile Range. Dave’s career spanned numerous research projects related to the understanding how the operations and performance of Army electro-optical sensors are affected by the atmosphere, including the effects of dust, fog, clouds, and the distorting effects of optical turbulence (heat boil) on imagery. Along the way, Dave studied electrical engineering at New Mexico State while continuing to work at White Sands, obtaining both Masters and Ph.D. degrees. Dave retired from White Sands in 2017 with 36 years service.[/note] to better relate the article to New Mexico.]

Photo by Pixabay

You can add plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) to the list of items that last
week’s low temperatures left in the cold.

Amid hype that these expensive, battery-operated cars are the vanguard of a  fossil fuel-free age, their cold-weather shortcomings reinforce their image as a subsidized toy for the rich.

As temperatures plummeted into the -20s and -30s across the Midwest, Tesla owners discovered their car’s travel range had sharply decreased. And its interior would not warm up. Some owners weren’t even able to open the car door because its electric entry mechanism froze up.

These owners had spent between $80,000 and $140,000 for a vehicle that Continue reading “Cold Weather Reveals Electric Cars Are Still Toys for the Wealthy”

Let’s do follow the climate money!

Climate Crisis Inc. gets billions to promote imaginary man-made cataclysm – but attacks realists

By Paul Driessen

The climate crisis industry incessantly claims that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global economies, health and living standards possible.

Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

However, as France’s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world is not prepared to go down that dark path. Countries worldwide are expanding their reliable fossil fuel use, and families do not want to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of Continue reading “Let’s do follow the climate money!”

An Analysis of the Grisham Energy Plan

by David Tofsted
Candidate NM House, District 36

[David Tofsted, CASF member and a candidate for the NM House of Representatives in NM District 36, has also posted a similar analysis of the Grisham Energy Plan on his own web site at this link. Ed.]

SUMMARY:

Contained herein is a preliminary attempt to bound the cost of the proposed Grisham Energy Plan. This plan calls for renewable power in New Mexico to account for 50% of all electrical power used by 2030, and increases that to 80% by 2040. The current document attempts to assess the costs of the Grisham plan by three different methods, and by employing two sets of

Photo by Pixabay

assumptions for one of the methods. The metric used for assessing cost was the surcharge to the average NM household yearly electric bill. In each case the cost per household was found to be on the order of just over one thousand to several thousands of dollars of added expense per year over the full 20 years of the plan.

The lowest estimate obtained was $1,500. The high estimate was  approximately $6,653. The remaining two estimates were $3,200 and $6,000. Based on the variability of assumptions and range of estimates it is Continue reading “An Analysis of the Grisham Energy Plan”