What is the opportunity cost of climate spending?
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May 30, 2025 at 03:47AM
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, commonly referred to as the “AMOC,” is a system of ocean currents confined to the Atlantic basin that plays a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate by transporting heat from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere, says Caltech @ Eurekalert.
The AMOC also modulates regional weather, from the mild summers in Europe to the monsoon seasons in Africa and India. Climate models have long predicted that global warming will cause the AMOC to weaken, with some projecting substantial weakening amounting to a near-collapse relative to the AMOC’s strength today.
Such a weakening would have far-reaching consequences, including changes in regional sea level rise and major shifts in regional climate, such as colder conditions in northern Europe and drier weather in parts of the Amazon and West Africa.
However, a new study from Caltech finds that although the AMOC will weaken under global warming, it is likely to do so to a much lesser extent than current projections suggest.
Atlantic ocean current unlikely to collapse with climate change – new study | Tallbloke’s Talkshop
via climate science
May 30, 2025 at 01:33AM
“The consolation prize for a lot of us is that Joe Romm is so extreme and unprofessional that his cause of “Hell and High Water” suffers. Climate change is exaggerated and nefarious, just like Joe Romm himself.
MasterResource has followed the mercurial climate alarmist/activist Joe Romm since its beginning (2007). Back in the late 1990s, I sparred with Romm while I was at Enron, (“a company I greatly respect,” said he) regarding what turned out to be its most deceitful business, one promising free-lunch energy efficiency. Enron Energy Services (EES) and Romm’s Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (CECS) both bit the dust. For-profit or non-profit, the “energy service company” (ESCO) was a mirage.
Romm has referred to me as a “sociopath” in a private email. And he repeatedly throws guilt-by-association that I have laboriously refuted several times before (see here, here, here, and here). Recently, he raised his head to get it handed back to him. I report, you decide.
Romm started the tussle with this comment:
Romm: Bradley hates when I point it out, but he worked directly for Ken Lay at Enron. “Bradley spent … 16 years at Enron where he served as corporate director of public policy analysis and as a speech writer for Kenneth Lay.” Quite the pedigree for a super troll. https://www.desmog.com/robert-l-bradley-jr/
Bradley: Here is the rest of the story of Rob Bradley and Enron, Joe. You are not being straight and are relying on short attention spans for your guilt-by-association. I have corrected you on this several times, and you continue to go for the hit-and-run.
Bradley: Your ‘energy efficiency’ pays-for-itself idea, which was at the core of Enron Energy Services, the most fraudulent division of Enron, was a bust. The ESCO/EES dream was an economic failure, a mirage, despite government policies trying to promote it. Here is the backstory for interested readers.
Romm: still with the disinformation. No, I wasn’t a “super-Enron” supporter nor have you provided any evidence that I was. Yes I was one of the many, many outsiders duped by your boss and the Enron Energy Services people for a short period of time. Obviously, I had no idea how corrupt the place was. Not many people outside the company had a clue about that.
I wasn’t one of the insiders, like you, who worked for the company for 16 years. I think it’s safe to say that if either one of us was likely to know what was going on inside the company—and be perfectly fine with it—it was the person who stayed there for 16 years and was working directly for Ken Lay for much of that time. Unless your argument is that you had no idea whatsoever what was going on at the company you were at for so long, even though you worked directly for the man in charge.
Bradley: Yes, a lot of people were fooled by Andy Fastow (whose first crime was with a wind farm, btw). But Enron was the darling of the Progressive Left for its climate alarmism, wind and solar investments, and grand promises of energy efficiency (your field). I fought against it in real time, however, and as an employee, with others at Enron wanting to fire me for my views. Read the memos here (once again) politicalcapitalism.org/enron
Mid-Course Correction Needed
Sixteen years ago, I recommended three reforms for Joe Romm to be realistic and stop offending people. The same apply to him today, as he hunkers down with Michael “Climategate” Mann at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Be more respectful toward your intellectual opponents. Beware of the “smartest guys in the room” problem, or what F. A. Hayek called the pretence of knowledge. The “skeptics” of climate alarmism have very serious arguments that could avoid what nobody wants: an energy road to serfdom. (Remember Jimmy Carter’s thermostat regulations? Beware of the carbon police!) I personally fear the effect of government intervention in the name of climate-change for the energy poor.
- Welcome and publicize the good news about CO2 and global climate change. There are plenty of studies and recent evidence of climate calm (temperatures, hurricanes, etc.) that should be recognized as such. There are ecological and economic positives from the green greenhouse gas that should be factored into the equation–a happy fact given that politics cannot solve the alleged problem (have you noticed?).
- The climate debate is very much two-sided. Don’t bully those on your side who share the nonalarmist view with their readers or listeners. They will smell a rat, not be intimidated. Journalists must be fair–that is part of their code of ethics.
He, of course, will have none of it. The consolation prize for a lot of us is that Romm is so extreme and unprofessional that his cause of “Hell and High Water” suffers. Climate change is exaggerated and nefarious, just like Joe Romm himself.
——————————-
Appendix: Joe Romm in Retrospect
I have documented some of the errors and exaggerations of Romm over the decades, including:
Master of Incorrect: Joe Romm (Part I: “Mideast Oil Forever,” 1996) July 23, 2018
Master of Incorrect: Joe Romm (Part II: ‘Hell and High Water’ book, 2007) July 24, 2018
Joe Romm: “It is clear that solar and wind are competitive in many situations right now” (Where have we heard this before?) April 27, 2011
When Romm Blamed Reagan for “this energy mess” (Jimmy Carter lives!) July 12, 2016
Enron Romm: History Should Not Forget December 19, 2011
Big Bad Wolf Romm: “Climate on the Brink….” (Plea to temper ‘shrillness’ by EDF’s Krupp ignored) June 3, 2011
Joseph Romm and Enron: More for the Record May 8, 2009
Joseph Romm and Enron: For the Record May 5, 2009
The post Joe Romm’s Repeated Deceit On Enron appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
May 30, 2025 at 01:02AM
Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
More than $14 billion in green energy projects have been delayed or canceled so far in 2025 as the Trump administration and its allies move to roll back former President Joe Biden’s sprawling climate agenda, according to new analysis released Thursday.
Congressional Republicans are looking to restrict Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies for green projects while the Trump administration slashes big-budget climate grants, leading companies that once had big ambitions to postpone or cancel their green energy developments outright. Although many investments spurred by the IRA were canceled before 2025, $14 billion worth of projects have been canceled or delayed so far this year, with $4.5 billion nixed or pushed back in April alone, according to an analysis on projects tracked by the nonpartisan group E2 in partnership with the Clean Economy Tracker.
“If the tax plan passed by the House last week becomes law, expect to see construction and investments stopping in states across the country as more projects and jobs are cancelled,” E2 Communications Director Michael Timberlake wrote in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: House Passes Trump’s ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ In Massive Victory For Speaker Johnson)
Excluding any cancellations, $132 billion in projects have been announced since the passage of the IRA, excluding canceled development plans, according to the analysis. Since Congress passed Biden’s IRA, 45 announced projects have been canceled, shut down or scaled back, with $16.7 billion in investment tied to these abandoned initiatives, according to E2.
Companies canceled or otherwise delayed $4.5 billion in investments for new battery, electric vehicle and wind projects in April ahead of the House’s passage of the GOP’s reconciliation bill, according to the analysis. The Republican megabill could severely limit or eliminate federal solar, wind, electric vehicle (EV) and battery tax credits if Senate Republicans can muster the will to do so, though several members have already signaled opposition to a total repeal of the credits.
The Biden administration pushed for the development of green energy infrastructure with lucrative tax credits and subsidies contained in the IRA, which was initially projected to unlock nearly $400 billion worth of tax credits in 2022. Later estimates indicated that the costs could skyrocket above $1 trillion over 10 years, in the case of the Goldman Sachs analysis, while the Cato Institute projected in a March report that IRA tax credits could cost as much as $4.7 trillion by 2050.
President Donald Trump ran against the Democrats’ climate agenda, which he has termed the “Green New Scam,” and declared a national energy emergency to boost conventional energy production upon taking office in January. Since then, Trump has also signed numerous executive orders to pave the way for affordable and reliable energy technology such as nuclear and coal to thrive in the private sector.
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May 30, 2025 at 12:04AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 