Paul Driessen

Tesla battery, subsidy and sustainability fantasies

The first justification was that internal combustion engines polluted too much. But emissions steadily declined, and today's cars emit about 3% of what their predecessors did. Then it was oil imports: electric vehicles (EVs) would reduce foreign dependency and balance of trade deficits. Bountiful oil and natural gas supplies from America's hydraulic fracturing revolution finally eliminated that as an argument.

Insanity and hypocrisy Down Under

The Wall Street Journal called it the energy shortage "no one saw coming." Actually, a lot of people did see it coming. But intent on pursuing their "dangerous manmade climate change" and "renewable energy will save the planet" agendas, the political classes ignored them. So the stage was set.

The crisis of integrity-deficient science

The epidemic of agenda-driven science by press release and falsification has reached crisis proportions.

Monumental, unsustainable environmental impacts

Demands that the world replace fossil fuels with wind, solar and biofuel energy--to prevent supposed catastrophes caused by manmade global warming and climate change--ignore three fundamental flaws.

We should be glad the US is out

Ten states, some 150 cities, and 1,100 businesses, universities and organizations insist "We are still in"--committed to the Paris climate agreement and determined to continue reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing climate change. In the process, WASI members claim, they will create jobs and promote innovation, trade and international competitiveness. It's mostly hype, puffery and belief in tooth fairies.

Advancing scientific integrity on bees

Second Lady Karen Pence and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue recently teamed up to install a honeybee hive on the grounds of the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. This will serve as a "great example" of what people can do to help "reverse the decline" in managed honeybee colonies around the country, the secretary said.

More rational policies in our future?

In the wake of President Trump's exit from the Paris climate treaty, reactions from other quarters were predictably swift, nasty, sanctimonious and hypocritical. Al Gore paused near one of the private jets he takes to hector lesser mortals to say the action will bring "a global weather apocalypse." Billionaire Tom Steyer got rich selling coal but called the President's action "a traitorous act of war."

Exiting the Mad Hatter's climate tea party

I can guess why a raven is like a writing-desk, Alice said. "Do you mean you think you can find out the answer?" said the March Hare. "Exactly so," said Alice. "Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on. "I do," Alice replied. "At least I mean what I say. That's the same thing, you know."

Please Exit the Paris Climate Treaty

Dear Mr. President: Are you are still wondering whether to Exit Paris? Overseas and US officials, environmentalists and bureaucrats urge you to Remain. But you promised voters you would Exit. Please keep your promises.

Nipping a legal problem in the bud

One of my recent articles predicted that the Fish & Wildlife Service's endangered species designation for the rusty patched bumblebee would lead to its being used to delay or block construction projects and pesticide use on hundreds of millions of acres of US farmland. The abuses have already begun.

Land, energy and mineral lockdowns

President Trump has directed Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review recent land withdrawals under the 1906 Antiquities Act, to determine whether some should be reversed or reduced in size.

Refocusing a Chicago water summit

President Trump's proposal to reduce the Environmental Protection Agency's $8.1-billion budget by $1.6 billion was cut to an $80-million trim in the omnibus spending bill. However, the EPA funding and staff controversy will undoubtedly resume during the next budgetary battles in September.

Ignorance, intolerance, violence

Recent science and climate marches demonstrated how misinformed, indoctrinated, politicized and anti-Trump these activists are – and how indifferent about condemning millions in industrialized nations and billions in developing countries to green energy poverty. Amid it all, University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole helped illustrate how the marchers became so ignorant, insensitive and intolerant.

Green Energy Poverty Week

April 22 was Earth Day, the March for Science and Lenin's birthday (which many say is appropriate, since environmentalism is now green on the outside and red, anti-free enterprise on the inside). April 29 will feature the People's Climate March and the usual "Climate change is real" inanity.

Watch the Video and Sign the Petition to President Trump: Get the U.S. Out of the Paris Climate Treaty

Myron Ebell is Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment. He provides the following background on what is happening with President Trump’s possibly wavering promise to withdraw the United States from the heavy-handed Paris climate (non)treaty. He urges Americans to watch CEI’s short new video … and sign a petition asking the President to keep his vitally important promise.

Real science must guide policy

All too many alarmist climate scientists have received millions in taxpayer grants over the years, relied on computer models that do not reflect real-world observations, attacked and refused to debate scientists who disagree with manmade climate cataclysm claims, refused to share their computer algorithms and raw data with reviewers outside their circle of fellow researchers--and then used their work to make or justify demands that the world eliminate the fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy and have lifted billions out of nasty, brutish, life-shortening poverty and disease.

Off to a bumbling start at Interior

Was it because there were too few senior Trump Administration officials in place to catch and stop it? Or because Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was new on the job, and had so much on his plate, that this decision just slipped right past him?

Pretend conservatives for not so clean energy

More and more conservatives are proclaiming the virtues of clean energy. At least that's what some groups want you to believe. In reality, far-left "charitable" foundations have given pretend conservatives millions of dollars to advance a climate chaos, renewable energy agenda--channeling the funds through intermediary groups, to OxiClean the transactions and limit transparency and accountability.

The silver-tongued liars' playbook

Coal-fired power plant scrubbers now remove 80-90 % of airborne particulate, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants. But that means "fly ash" and noncombustible residues (what we used to call clinkers) must be sent to landfills. That's opened a new front for anti-energy activists, who use accidents, "detectable" pollutants in water, and scary stories about health threats to advance their agenda.

The social cost of carbon regulations

"If you could pick just one thing to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy," Bill Gates has said. "Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty," World Bank VP Rachel Kyte and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen agree.