The Butterfly Effect
The lynch pin of federal and state energy and climate legislation has been rooted in the whole idea of anthropological global warming.
Then that "settled" science suffered a magnitude 9.9 earthquake with the leaked emails from East Anglia University all but admitting the scientific findings were doctored in order to influence policy. The Climategate aftershocks continue, with more and more senators and governors calling for putting the brakes on the Environmental Protection Agency's posturings and any push through of climate-change legislation.
The Guardian and other international media were all over this story from the jump. Now that the U.S. news media has decided to cover the story, the Boston Globe makes its contribution to the fallout from the increasingly fraudulent findings: After errors, global warming gets cold shoulder.
Closer to my home, a non-partisan legislative analyst has declared that California's freshly minted global warming law would cause job losses. A pull quote from the article:
"The report comes at a politically charged moment, when polls show employment to be Americans' top concern. Signature gathering began last week on a November ballot initiative that would delay the law, known as AB 32, until unemployment drops to 5.5% for at least a year. California joblessness is over 12% today."
Uh oh. From today's L.A. Times, California's unemployment rate now tops 20% in eight counties. So as we get more dire news about state employment projections, along with more scrutiny into those doctored AGW reports, it looks like AB 32 may well be aborted.
Hard on the heels of that story, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is scrapping plans to build an 85-mile "green power" transmission line across the desert. DWP drops plans to build 85-mile power transmission line across desert.
This DWP project has been surrounded by controversy and pissing off environmentalists and desert residents alike. It never made sense to me anyway, and seemed like another way to further burnish L.A.'s reputation of energy robber baron. A telling statement from the article confirms this:
"The announcement reflected a shift in policy toward developing renewable resources closer to the DWP's existing power corridors."
No, duh.
Like Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is trying to locate a legacy out of the sludge of his failed leadership, so he was banking on making his bones as the leader of the "cleanest, greenest big city in America," with this project. Smilin' Tony, of course, was unavailable for comment.
Things that make you go, "Hmm...".