Behind closed doors, these strategic delaying tactics are not altogether unwelcome by many if not most of the key non-EU nations. What is altogether new at this year’s climate summit is that even climate alarmism appears to have received a dose of cold water. The latest scientific research findings are certainly facilitating a growing number of climate delayers who are promoting an international wait-and-see strategy, a new diplomatic approach that is becoming increasingly fashionable among advocates of climate Realpolitik. --Benny Peiser, Financial Post, 26 November 2011
One of the big arguments proponents of the ‘green jobs’ scam often bring out is that the argument that China, thanks to its support of green tech companies, will own the future while the United States is left behind. Think again. According to a report on Bloomberg, the Chinese solar power industry is on the ropes; massive over investment has run up against flat demand. Margins have turned negative at some companies where solar panels can only be sold below cost. --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia. 25 November 2011
Britain’s huge energy-intensive chemical industry contributes £30 million a day to the UK economy. But it is clear already that new green legislation has begun to force early closures and a business exodus to foreign parts. A plague of profit-busting climate policies is sending a “clear signal” to energy-intensive industries: divest yourself of assets, shed jobs – or just plain ship out. --Peter Glover, Energy Tribune, 23 November 2011
So President Obama was right all along. Domestic energy production really is a path to prosperity and new job creation. His mistake was predicting that those new jobs would be "green," when the real employment boom is taking place in oil and gas. The ironies here are richer than the shale deposits in North Dakota's Bakken formation. While Washington has tried to force-feed renewable energy with tens of billions in special subsidies, oil and gas production has boomed thanks to private investment. And while renewable technology breakthroughs never seem to arrive, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have revolutionized oil and gas extraction—with no Energy Department loan guarantees needed. --The Wall Street Journal, 26 November 2011
This is what bad energy policy looks like: as the US dithers over Canadian tar sands oil, China is ready to buy. Access to reliable oil from a friendly neighboring country like Canada is one of America’s greatest geopolitical blessings. Throwing this away would be the height of folly; those seem to be heights we are eager to scale. The greens, like the clueless disarmament and peace advocates in the 1920s and 1930s who unwittingly made it possible for Hitler and Stalin to murder tens of millions of people, are making the 21st century a more dangerous place. Those who care about world peace and the prosperity of the American middle class need to take a stand. Occupy Malibu, anyone? --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 25 November 2011
